So yesterdoodle, as part of my ongoing efforts to get the Ocelopotamus back to full health and vitality, I finally got around to overhauling the blogroll (that’s that tall snaky thing over to the right that looks like a list of nonsensical words and phrases!) with some links that I’ve been accumulonimbusing for a stoat’s […]

[Read more →]

It’s been ages since I’ve done one of these little Chicago roundups, but there are so many head-splittingly good things going on this week that it seems like a dandy time to reinstate the tradition.
• First up, this weekend is the opening of the brand-new Theater Oobleck show Spukt, written by the mercurial Dave Buchen. […]

[Read more →]

Next Wednesday, September 19, I’m going to be participating in a way-fun event called The Nod, in which some of Chicago’s best bloggers will be reading posts from their blogs live at the Uptown Writer’s Space.
And for some reason they’ve asked me to be on the bill, as well. Possibly to make the rest of […]

[Read more →]

If you’re here in Chicago and looking for something fun to do tomorrow evening, I’ll be participating in an award ceremony and “gentle roast” (in the words of Live Bait Theater) for those stalwarts of the Chicago solo performance scene — and my fellow Pansy Kings — David Kodeski and Edward Thomas-Herrera.
The ceremony is […]

[Read more →]

Time to haul out a real classic.
It’s hard to explain to someone who wasn’t around, and tuned in to the new music scene, just how electrifying this video was in the first few years of the 1980s, when you’d catch it on the scattershot music video shows that existed before MTV. I still think of […]

[Read more →]

I haven’t done one of these Chicago Fringe scene reports in a while, so here’s what’s on my radar this week:

The Neo-Futurists’ annual festival It Came From The Neo-Futurarium VI: Curse of The Neo-Futurarium, consisting of staged readings of various camp-ready old films, kicks off this Thursday, June 21 at 8pm. The first installment is […]

[Read more →]

For those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Stephen Colbert in person, this backstage video of him prepping John Kerry before Kerry’s recent Colbert Report appearance is a fun little peek behind the curtain of the character he plays on his show.
I think knowing what a charming, mild-mannered, and self-effacing person Stephen is […]

[Read more →]

Andy Towle has been posting about controversy in the UK over signs advertising the traditional dish called “faggots” as a menu item (or an item not on the menu, as the case may be). Which made me remember this shot I took when I was staying in Edinburgh in 2000, while performing with The Neo-Futurists […]

[Read more →]

It’s springtime, so naturally Chicago’s fancy is turning toward divorce and debauchery. Oops, I meant to say, fabulous fringe performance, music, and poetry readings!

This week the Poetry Center of Chicago is presenting a reading by legendary beat poet Diane di Prima, author of 35 books of poetry and prose, including Pieces of a Song, Loba, […]

[Read more →]

This is it — tonight’s the night The Partly Dave Show makes its long-prophesied return, at 7:30pm at The Neo-Futurarium.
I’ll dish out one more exciting little fact about tonight’s show: Even in Blackouts will be unveiling* the brand-new Partly Dave Show theme song, hot out of the oven** and never before heard by human ears!
If […]

[Read more →]

The trees are budding in Chicago this week, and the darling buds of the fringe performance scene are in full crazy spring bloom as well. There’s so much going on that if I’m not careful, I might use up all my item bullets, and then I wouldn’t have any for next week! Well, anyway, here […]

[Read more →]

Continuing the brand-new tradition of breaking news about The Partly Dave Show here on Ocelopotamus first, I can now confirm the full lineup for our upcoming show, and fill you in on why we’re doing it and what’s so goll-dang special about it.
Here’s the deal: the shadowy white-coated figures at The Partly Dave Show’s underwater […]

[Read more →]

I was strangely resistant to seeing Shortbus when it was playing in theaters last fall, and I’m not entirely sure why. I suppose partly I was put off by all the buzz about it, because I’m the kind of person who gets put off by buzz sometimes, and partly I was suspicious of the “graphic […]

[Read more →]

My old friend AKMA (from the Billy-Bragg email list back in the 90s) has a short but insightful post up about the etiquette of responding to a straight line when it’s offered. It reminds me of why I used to enjoy talking to him online so much. Go read it. The last time I exchanged […]

[Read more →]