We Did It!

Last night, I hosted the "Be Happy" variety show in Chicago in response to the election results. You can read about the impetus for the show in this post.

I was blown away at the support for the show. Nine of my favorite performers happily donated their time and energy to the night, The Public House Theatre graciously donated the space, and we had over 80 audience members who packed the house for a night of comedy, magic, and mind reading.

At the end of the night, we totaled the donations and discovered we had raised over $1500 for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois! My original goal had been $1000, so I was ecstatic to know we had surpassed my expectations.

The demands of putting together a show is different than my usual job of just being an entertainer, so I was much more nervous/stressed out than usual. I am a perfectionist about little details and lost a ton of sleep making sure this thing came together. I'm exhausted and won't come down from last night for a few days - but I'm so happy that we did this.

A special thank you to the remarkable performers: Junior Stopka, Dennis Watkins, Adam Burke, Soli Santos, Sameena Mustafa, AJ Sacco, Bill Bullock, Cody Melcher, and Prateek Srivastava.

Also, thanks to my friends Byron and Sasha Hatfield, who run The Public House Theatre, and my wife Stephanie for taking pictures during the show.

Mind Reading

Cody Melcher

Sameena Mustafa

AJ Sacco

Bill Bullock

Adam Burke

Byron Hatfield

Signed Poster Raffle

Dennis Watkins

Prateek Srivastava

Soli Santos

Junior Stopka

The Ensemble

The goal of the show was always to help people forget about the shitty parts of 2016 and "Be Happy" for a night. I was wearing so many hats - producer, host, performer, ACLU spokesperson - that I didn't have a chance to thank everyone who came last night.

So if you were in attendance, from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

It's so easy to stay home and pretend that a retweet is equal to activism. Thank you for getting out of your house, doing your part, and getting involved. Thank you for supporting live theater. Thank you for being part of something good. Thank you for doing something.

Last night was everything to me. I hope you're as happy as I am.

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving.

It's hard to say that phrase because 2016 has been a pretty rough year. It's not the "giving thanks" part I'm having trouble with. I have plenty to be thankful for.

I have a beautiful, talented wife who is supportive of everything I do. We travel, create art, live, work, and play together. I'm thankful for her every day.

I also love what I do. I'm incredibly fortunate to do the exact thing I promised myself I would be doing 25 years ago. I spend my days making people laugh and helping them experience something that is becoming harder to find with every passing moment: mystery. It's my dream job and I'm thankful for it every single day.

Plus, I live in Chicago. The Windy City constantly challenges me to make my time count and to work harder. I always wanted to live in a city full of opportunity, surrounded by people different than me. Chicago is all of that and more. I'm so thankful to live here.

So yeah, it's not the "giving thanks" part I'm struggling with. It's the "happy" part.

I haven't been very happy this year - for a lot of reasons.

Work was slow for the first four or five months of 2016. I'm not sure why, but I was in a funk and I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere artistically. As a result, my business suffered. 

Most performers in my field pretend to be busier than they are. They boast of their number of shows and their first class seats. But I don't want to lie - not here on my own blog. The point of these essays is to be honest, so believe me when I say the start of 2016 sucked for me. Artistically and business-wise. It was awful.

When you're self-employed and business is slow, it puts a strain on everything. My wife and I would get frustrated with each other more often, looking for somewhere to place the blame. We had to go all the way to London to get away from our work and take a break.

I was also training for a marathon at the start of the year. I was logging between 50-60 miles a month on top of a busy show/travel schedule during the holidays. Then, I was out for a run one day and I felt a sharp pain shoot up through my right foot and into my leg. I went to a podiatrist who told me that my feet aren't really built for running. Some custom orthotics and several months of physical therapy later, I'm finally getting back to training. But my progress is gone. I hate starting over.

In August my best friend killed himself. I've never been more sad then I was the day I heard the news. There's an emptiness inside of me now that will never be replaced. A song will come on my iPod that reminds me of Jake and it stops me dead in my tracks. I try to smile through it but it hurts too much. I miss him every day.

As the bad news kept piling on over the summer, I tried to figure out what happiness means to me. Why do I feel so sad when I have so much to be thankful for?

I turned to my usual outlet - writing - and made a list of the things that were affecting my mental well-being.

• Social Media

• Society's Definition Of Success

• Negative People

The things that contributed to my depression all had one trait in common: they were out of my control. So I made another list - some reminders for myself:

• I couldn't control what people shared online - I could only control my response to it.

• My definition of success didn't have to be the same as everyone else's.

• I could choose to eliminate the negative people from my life.

Now, whenever I'm alone and uncertain I pull up those reminders on my phone and think about what makes me truly happy. I can only control my thoughts and my actions. Nothing else. So I choose to think good thoughts and do good deeds.

I choose to be happy.

Business has picked up. I'll end the year with more shows and flights than any prior year. It just took a while to get going.

I'm slowly getting back into running. I can't wait to do another marathon.

Losing a friend made me realize how important the people I care about really are. I will never take them for granted.

I've stopped talking to the people who bring me down. I limit my time on social media and remind myself how little it matters. And I view success differently than I did before.

I'm not as sad as I was at the start of the year but I'm not fully happy either. Still, I'm closer than I've been for a really long time. And for that I'm truly thankful.

Make Great Art

I spent three or four days after the election losing sleep and trying to come to grips with the results. Then, at the end of last week, I decided it was time to do something.

So I logged onto the American Civil Liberties Union's website and pulled up their donate page. I typed $100 into the submission box, then paused.

Blink, blink, blink.

The cursor taunted me, reading my thoughts for a change.

Was this the best I could do?

All last year I had donated to campaigns and causes, lent my voice to protests and debates. I was involved and educated, but to what end?

Here I was, ready to donate again, but it just didn't feel like anything would come out of it. After a vicious election cycle in our post-truth society, how would this truly change anything?

I could click send and have a small sense of pride knowing I had donated to the ACLU, but then what? I guess I'd walk over to my neighborhood coffee shop and listen to a podcast. Just like any other day.

But it's not any other day now, is it?

Blink, blink, blink.

As I stared at the blinking cursor, a few thoughts raced through my mind:

When George W. Bush was president I had serious concerns with his actions and disagreed with him on nearly everything. However, I still respected the office of the president. I knew it wasn't the end of the world and he would be out of office soon.

But this time is different. We have a president-elect (whose name I refuse to use because he already gets enough free advertising) who built his entire campaign on hate, sexism, racism, and more. He was endorsed by the KKK and encouraged violence at his rallies. Not to mention, he's a sexual predator and has really tiny, baby hands.

So no, I don't respect this person. And I don't understand the people in the media saying "Just give him a chance!" Isn't that what the campaign was for? You can't erase eighteen months of disgusting rhetoric with a victory. He's still the same awful person he was prior to winning.

That's why this time is different. That's why people are protesting and my neighborhood has grown eerily quiet. That's why people are wearing safety pins and speaking out. They're scared for the future and uncertain of what our country will look like with a thin-skinned demagogue in charge.

Blink, blink, blink.

The cursor winked back at me like it does so often when writer's block hits mid-essay. And I finally understood what I was feeling.

This time it's different. A simple donation on our way to work won't get the job done. It's time for more action. 

It's time for more love and more empathy. It's time for more understanding and more compassion.

This is a time for people to bridge the gap between different opinions. It's time to enrich and inspire, educate and enlighten. 

It's a time to make great art. Fearless, unapologetic, fantastic art.

So I opened my inbox and started reaching out to my favorite performers in Chicago. I messaged a local theater I'd worked with in the past. I opened Photoshop and started designing a poster.

And suddenly, an idea was born.

On Sunday, November 27th, I'm hosting a one-night-only show called "BE HAPPY 😀: A Forget-About-The-Election Variety Show", along with nine of the best performers in the city.

The best part? ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the proceeds will be going to the ACLU!

When something bad happens I've always been a person who responds by doing more. I get more involved and make sure my voice is heard. I fight for what I believe in by taking more action.

Somewhere in the midst of a dozen projects, two browser windows, fourteen open tabs - between research, writing, and half-baked ideas - is that donate page. And that goddamn cursor, still waiting for my next move.

I can't wait to hit send on November 28th and get rid of that. But I need your help.

If you've been wanting to do something since the election but weren't sure what to do, then this is a great first step. Come to this show and forget about the election for a couple hours. You'll see some magic, laugh, maybe even let me read your mind. All for a great cause.

Then you can go do something else and get even more involved. That's what I plan on doing and so should you. But for now, get a ticket for this show and support the ACLU. I think we all deserve to BE HAPPY for a night.

You can read more about the show, the lineup of incredible performers, and buy tickets here. 😀

Halloween At The Magic Penthouse

Halloween at The Magic Penthouse was a blast! Four of the finest performers - including myself - gathered on the rooftops of Chicago for a night of mysterious entertainment. There was also a special surprise that no one saw coming!

Of course, I was filming the whole night and put a short commercial together from the party. Check it out below!

Silence

I walked down Lake Shore Drive in the early hours after the election. The results weren't fully in yet, but the outcome was inevitable.

My heart pounded ferociously in my chest and my breath was short and staggered. Numbed by this awful moment in time, I stared off into the darkness of Chicago unable to process my thoughts and come to grip with this reality.

The best I could offer were tears of solace and solidarity for my friends who would live in fear for years to come. But my best wasn't even close to being good enough.

My mind was racing but I couldn't form sentences. My feelings changed without warning, unable to be put into words.

I was engulfed by the silence.

My opinions are simple: I don't care what you believe as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. That simple thought is at the core of what I believe and how I act toward others.

So how was I supposed to live in a world fueled by hate? The only country I've ever known had turned its back on decency and love for our fellow citizens.

Then I wondered, how do the people I've known my whole life feel about this election? How is it affecting them?

And that's when it hit me. The people who claimed to be loving and compassionate and caring and religious and kind to all were no where to be found.

They weren't posting meaningful dialogue online. They weren't contributing to the conversation. And they weren't voicing their disgust for a person who was openly against everything they claimed to believe.

Throughout this election, I've been subjected to various forms of bullying by people on social media. Old high school classmates have called me a "spoiled brat" or a "fucktard". They've made assumptions about my character and the character of my friends. I've been attacked viciously by white supremacists on Twitter and had to listen to old white men at gigs angrily tell me why they support a misogynistic, tax evading, sexist demagogue.

Where were my "religious" friends when I needed defending? Where were my "religious" friends when Muslims, women, immigrants, the disabled, Veterans, Mexicans, and other groups were being marginalized? Where were they when their voice could have mattered the most?

They were no where to be found.

This isn't on me. The ones of us who spoke out and attended rallies are not to blame. We're not responsible for this setback to this country we love. 

I'm sorry to my friends who are minorities. I'm sorry to my friends in the LGBTQ community. I'm sorry to the refugees and the women. I'm sorry to my wife and future children. I'm sorry to my friends with disabilities. I'm sorry to anyone with a religion other than the majority's. I'm sorry to the youth of America who will be bullied at school now because other children will have seen a person in power who bullies others, too.

I'm not religious. I don't go to church or send out "thoughts and prayers". I take action and make sure my voice is heard. I take a stand for what matters, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

As a white man, I'll be fine. I'll go about my life like nothing has changed and everything will work out. But I'm not fine. 

I know everything will be okay, but things won't ever be the same.

I just wish the people who claim to have "values" - my family and friends who claim to be so "moral" and "good" - had done their part. I wish you had lived what you love to preach.

So to those people now, I say this:

I see you.

I see your "religion" and your "morality". But most of all, I see your hypocrisy.

Your silence has not gone unnoticed.

It's deafening.

Honesty

I'm a liar.

My voice isn't always this loud. I have a microphone on and it amplifies the words I'm saying.

Standing like this isn't natural. No one stands like this in real life. My "upstage foot" - the one farthest away from you - is slightly ahead of my "downstage foot".  It's a stance designed to make you feel as if you can still see me while I'm talking to someone onstage.  It's literally called "cheating out".

I told you. I'm not telling the truth.

We're in this room with three real walls and a fourth one that we've invisibly agreed exists in the space between us. 

Now we're just lying to ourselves.

You sit there, all facing the same way, and I stand here peering out at you through my glasses. One lens is necessary - I'm blind in my left eye - but the other is just a pane of glass. Another white lie to give the appearance of normal.

A faceless figure in the shadows is sliding switches and pushing buttons to make sure my amplified voice is the right volume and these bright lights - all pointed in my direction - turn on at the right time.

If they do their job right you won't even notice.

The inside of my briefcase, weathered by years on the road, is held together with gaff tape.  Extra pencils and batteries sit just out of sight. You'll never see the ugly truth behind this facade I'm showing you.

My watch doesn't work, but I glance at it just to keep up appearances.

I'll be saying the same words I said last night but making them sound fresh and new. It may feel unplanned but I spent hours writing the script on my MacBook and refining it onstage. It took years to write it out and give you enough clues to fill in the blanks.

So I stand here, surrounded by lies, as the most sincere version of myself.  Without those lies I can't give you the truth. I can't tell you the things that matter and make you forget the things that don't. I can't make you care without lying to you first.

I need this room with this invisible wall, and those chairs, facing towards the front. I need this mic and my mysterious friend to make sure I'm heard. I need to "cheat out" and say the same words I've said a million times. I need all of those things to keep this on the up and up. 

What better place to be honest than on stage?