Right Now

I never wanted to live in Chicago. It was always supposed to be New York.

The pre-internet half of my childhood was full of classic movies, music, and television. I’d watch King Kong climb the Empire State Building, listen to Frank Sinatra start spreadin’ the news, get up early to watch the balloons march past Macy’s, and stay up late to see the ball magically defy gravity until the stroke of midnight. I was captivated by the Big Apple.

“If not New York then I'll settle for Hollywood,” I told myself, and set my sights on either coast. Every thought I had, every song I sang, and every movie I watched seem to pull me in diametrically opposed directions. Movies: LA! Plays: New York City! My own TV show: Hollywood! Musicals: New York!

Between my junior and senior years of high school I went to Chicago for the first (and I’m sure I imagined on that trip, my last) time, to audition for two colleges: New York University (Tisch) and the University of Southern California.

First came NYU, for three very serious people in a very serious room. I had a terrible audition. I was a small town kid in the big city for the first time and it got to me. I was nervous and it showed.

After that, I calmed down and had a good audition for USC. I was more confident and felt better afterwards.

My folks made me apply to the University of Kansas, too, so I would have a back-up plan in case I didn’t get into NYU or USC. I did, but there’s no way I would have gone there. I hate back-up plans and how was I supposed to stay in Kansas when I’d spent my entire childhood dreaming of one of the coastal cities?

Weeks later I got a short letter from NYU letting me know I hadn’t gotten accepted. It was disappointing but I knew it was coming. A few days after that, a large packet from USC arrived and I was accepted into the acting program. I was ecstatic. It was incredible - I would be going to one of my dream schools. (I had done it all thanks to hard work since my parents couldn’t afford to bribe my way in.)

I spent a year in California before my father passed away and I had to return to Kansas. I miserably finished school back home before heading back out to LA to “make it”…whatever that means. I slept on couches, struggled, and failed. Back to the Sunflower State I went again.

Soon after I proposed to my wife and we started planning our next move. We would save money and move to New York instead. I worked multiple jobs and moonlighted as an entertainer, while she finished school. Somewhere between summer and winter (fall, perhaps?) Steph thought we should start with Chicago first. She had friends there. It was closer to her family. She’d never lived in a huge city before. We could start there, then head to NYC after a couple years. “Okay,” I said, “will you be there?” (A longstanding joke with Steph about how I will have fun anywhere as long as I’m with her.)

With the exception of a year-long performance contract at Disney World, we’ve been in Chicago ever since. We moved here in 2011 and we’re coming up on 9 years. That’s about 8 years longer than I’d expected and the truth is, I never wanted to be here.

Most of the time I've still been thinking about LA or NYC and longing for another shot at succeeding there. I’ve spent countless hours comparing the worst parts of The Windy City to the best parts back east and out west. Every year I think we may move out there, then things happen. I dislocate a shoulder or wreck our car; one of us needs surgery or we encounter something equally unexpected, so we crack open our piggy bank like the glass jar in “UP” and use that “big city move money” for something else. Those big cities? Still on the back burner.

But here’s the thing...

I was in LA two weeks ago and it was my least favorite trip to SoCal I’ve ever had. I spent most of the time stuck in traffic. I was able to catch up with family briefly but it was so short that I didn’t really feel like I even saw the city. Usually I go to the ocean or a museum or something, but this time wasn’t special at all.

Then, I went to NY last weekend to see a Broadway show. The trip was fun but unfortunately all I remember is trash piled high on the ground and people constantly getting in my way everywhere I went. The subway was disgusting, the Museum of Natural History was disappointing, and everything is comically overpriced. It’s filthy and smelly and crowded. I’m still in awe of the opportunity and enormity of it all but the shine is starting to wear off.

When we flew in I could see the Chicago skyline beyond the wing of the plane and I had a feeling that I’ve ignored for far too long. I smiled to myself and realized how much I’ve grown to like it here.

At a moment’s notice I get to run along Chicago’s lake front; truly one of the best routes in the entire world. We have incredible food here and it’s allowed me to transform from a picky eater in my teenage years to a bit of a “foodie”. We have amazing museums, gorgeous architecture, and the best skyline views you’ll find anywhere. We have AMCs for the latest movies and a cinema within walking distance that still shows films on film. There’s amazing art - music, theater, comedy, and more - that never ceases to inspire me. And we have a small but amazing apartment with gorgeous views that I share with my best friend and the furriest, sweetest two cats you’ve ever seen. We wake up every day with plenty of space to sip coffee, do our crosswords, and be happy in this small corner of the world that we get to call our own.

Much of my life has been spent thinking about the next thing. The next show, the next year, the next plan, the next move to the next big city. But I’m done with all of that. From now on I’m only thinking about one thing: how lucky I am to be right here, right now.

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Other Thoughts:

• We were in NY to see my friend Derren Brown’s incredible show “SECRET” on Broadway. If you find yourself there before January 4th be sure to check it out. We grabbed dinner after the show and here’s a picture of Derren trying on my glasses before he realized how horrible my prescription is.

• I’m continuing my annual tradition today and running the Turkey Trot here in Chicago. Yet another thing I’m thankful for here in the Second (to none) City.

• What To Watch Next: Check out Mike Birbiglia’s “The New One” and Seth Meyers’ “Lobby Baby” on Netflix. Or “Knives Out” in theaters. I really enjoyed all three!

• Thank you for reading these essays. Wherever you find yourself this weekend, I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful Thanksgiving! As always, I’ll be taking December off from the blog since I’m going to be traveling so much. See you in 2020!

Nuance

A fellow performer (and friend) approached me after a recent show.

“Mark, you can't say that kind of stuff. That’s not okay.”

He’s known for joking around so I thought he was just being ridiculous. But he wasn’t. He was trying to pick apart my act and had taken issue with something I’d said onstage. I was taken aback, especially since I hadn’t done anything wrong.

See, when I perform at a comedy club I do a lot of “crowd work”. Crowd work is unscripted dialogue with the audience, hopefully resulting in a funny or memorable moment. During my comedy club sets I go in search of those moments, hoping something will happen that will create a one-of-kind evening.

Crowd work is a lot like playing with fire. In today’s “woke” culture you have to be careful what you say and who you say it to. If your punchline is directed at someone who can’t take a joke then it can be a disaster. But, that’s part of the fun. Just as in life, you have to take chances to get any where interesting.

I have a few loose "rules" I try to stick to when doing crowd work, including:

• Observe before the show.

• Plan ahead.

• Be fearless.

• Don’t apologize.

• Double down.

• Stay in the joke.

• Compare or contrast.

• Ask questions.

• Always be learning.

Let me break those down for you…

You can’t plan crowd work before you get to the show but as soon as the audience arrives you can start observing. What kind of group is it? What kind of people are they? Are there any standout people with outrageous hair or outfits or other characteristics? What stands out?

I stand to the side to watch the audience and pay attention to anything interesting I see or hear. Then the joke writing begins. By the time I take the stage I already have five jokes ready to go, so you’ll never know which ones are made up on the spot and which ones I came up with earlier. That’s part of the fun.

Crowd work can be really enjoyable since you never know where it goes. But it’s work. You don’t get to relax for a moment. While everyone else is laughing you have to plan ahead. Laughs are extra time for thinking of your next joke.

Usually my next joke is whatever pops in my head first. I try to make the jokes I’d make with a group of friends at a party but that means you have to be fearless. You’re going into uncharted territory but you have to act like this is exactly where you want to go. Otherwise, the audience will sense your nerves and won’t come along for the ride.

Sometimes jokes get a laugh or applause. Other times they’ll get a gasp or an uncomfortable shift in the room. But you can’t apologize. If you apologize once then it’s all over, so you have to double down and expand on the joke. Most of the time you just need an additional line or two to clarify what you were trying to say. Doubling down demonstrates your confidence and the audience will respond accordingly.

Jerry Seinfeld talks about staying in the joke. That means that when the audience is laughing or reacting you have to keep the same energy going. If I’m roasting an audience member and people start laughing I don’t get to break character and start laughing myself. I have to stay in the joke and keep roasting the guy. That’s how you get bigger laughs and create special moments.

Most of my favorite jokes follow the compare or contrast formula. If something funny happens I try to compare or contrast it to something relatable. Recently a guy blew his nose really loudly during a moment of silence in the show. I roasted him for it, asking him if he thought it was going to be that loud. I said, “No, you thought you got away with it. That’s like…” comparing it to something hilarious. Looking for those comparisons takes crowd work to a whole new level. (You can see what I said when the video goes live on Monday.)

If you run out of things to say, just ask questions. Ask the person where they’re from or what they do for work. They’re likely to contribute something hilarious. You’re taking advantage of the fact that people get nervous speaking in front of other people and hoping they will say something you can use for your next joke. Plus, asking questions gives you even more time to plan ahead.

The last component to crowd work is to always be learning new information. You need a large reservoir of knowledge to pull from when you start improvising with the audience. You never know what random trivia you’ll be able to use for a joke. In the past two weeks I’ve made jokes about elevators, crossword puzzles, investors, divorce attorneys, hockey, Mensa, Party City, clowns, and trombones. I try to read as much as possible, pay attention to the news, and study trivia to fill my head with knowledge. I also make notes when I think of jokes and consult the list before each show. You never know what info will come in handy!

As you can tell I put a lot of thought and energy into something that is largely impossible to rehearse or plan. But, I care about my shows being unique to every audience so I think it’s important to analyze every single part of my act.

Before a recent show I couldn’t help but notice a row of five men all dressed in similar sweater vests. The first thought in my head was that they looked like investors. They just had that vibe. I filed it away and went backstage.

Two minutes into my show one of those men called out a funny comment.

“Shut up," I said to big laughter from the room. Then I set my sights on their row. I was ready.

“Look at this row of investors…” I said, riffing on their general appearance. The men laughed, too, so I started asking questions.

Turns out the men were in attendance with their wives but they were all seated in one long line. It was the five men in a row, followed by their fives wives. I couldn’t understand the seating arrangement - if given the choice I would always choose to sit by my wife - and started roasting them for it.

I was asking one of the women to participate but I wanted to find out more. It was just too funny. We’d been making jokes for a couple minutes by this point and everyone was on board.

“Who do you belong to?" I asked, pointing back and forth from the investors to their wives. “Do the seats correspond to each other or what? Which investor is yours?” The ladies were wiping tears out of their eyes. One of the men tried to explain the seating arrangements, which were too confusing to understand.

“I didn’t want to do a Mensa puzzle tonight, I was just making conversation!” and invited my volunteer onstage to help with my next piece.

The problem was that my aforementioned performer friend only walked in before I said “Who do you belong to?” then proceeded to accost me in the dressing room calling me “old-fashioned” and “not woke”. But he hadn’t heard the whole bit. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t talking ownership, I was talking about the absurdity of the seating arrangements. It was part of a larger riff and no one in the crowd ever pulled back. Everyone got the joke, everyone was laughing, and it was a great night.

(The following night, my friend pulled me aside to apologize. He said he’d had a few too many drinks the night before and hadn’t meant what he said. I thanked him for that and all was well.)

My problem with this is that there is no nuance any more. Everyone is so quick to get outraged that we forget to look at the big picture. We forget that maybe a thought needs more than 280 characters to be expressed. Things aren’t 100% right or 100% wrong. Thoughts are messy and people are complicated.

My style has always been to gently make fun of people in the audience. It just works for me to point out the comical way that people behave or respond in the moment. And most people can take the joke. Theater audiences get it. Comedy club audiences love it. Corporate audiences might love it the most, because no one talks to CEOs that way. But I do and they go wild.

But I’ve noticed a big shift in college audiences over the past ten years. At my first college shows a decade ago I would give students a hard time and it would go over like gangbusters. But not any more. Now a silly joke about someone doing something ridiculous can be seen as “shaming” or “name-calling”. And the students don’t laugh. They don’t like it. It’s fine if you want to make fun of yourself, just don’t pick on one of the students. As my wife so brilliantly puts it, they have become “too woke to joke”.

People taking offense at jokes has been in the news a lot over the past several years. Of all the hills to die on, getting offended by a joke might be the lamest. If you don't like a joke that’s fine. You probably just don’t have a good sense of humor. But that doesn’t mean you get a refund or should go write a blog about it.

The joy of crowd work is getting to say the things that everyone is thinking. You get to point out the obvious absurdities that exist in everyday life. Everything is fair game and nothing is off limits. As Dave Chappelle says “I don’t think people pay money to see someone speak precisely and carefully. You have a responsibility to speak recklessly.” I may not always say it perfectly but there’s something fun in watching someone work out their thoughts in front of you.

The funny thing about all of this, of course, is that my crowd work is pretty tame. I’m not making fun of people’s religion or ethnicity or sexual identity. I just find it funny if someone does something a little unusual and can’t help but tease them for it.

The way I see it is that we're all a little ridiculous. We do dumb stuff and make dumb decisions. We have weird thoughts and bad opinions. We’re complicated and nuanced and people shouldn’t expect us to get it right all the time. As a result, we all should be made fun of equally. That’s the world I want to live in.

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Other Thoughts:

• Just saw Noah Baumbach’s beautiful film “Marriage Story” on 35mm at a theater in Chicago. (If you’ve never seen a film on film before you’re missing out!) It goes on Netflix in December and I highly recommend it.

• I’ve already added some shows to my schedule in 2020. Hope to see you there.

• Check out this week’s video:

Drops In A Bucket

Most of the self-improvement advice I read goes something like this:

“If you want to be good at XXX you have to do XXX every single day.”

(Call it the Seinfeld Srategy or The X Effect or whatever you want, but I’m certain you’ve probably heard it before, too.)

Obviously, that makes a lot of sense. But it’s not an all or nothing proposition. I’ve read about many people working on a goal who became discouraged after they missed a day in the chain. They end up treating that missed day as a failure and falling off the wagon entirely. I’ve been there myself.

For me, it’s running. I try to lift weights and eat well but my big commitment has been to run as often as possible. Since my travel schedule is so unpredictable running has become my best option for exercising when on the road.

Before my trips I try to plan out my travel accordingly: Does the hotel have a gym? (I can use a treadmill in case the weather is unbearable.) Is there a running path nearby? What does my weekly mileage look like and will I have enough time for those runs?

That’s how I’ve approached my travel for years. I land in any given city already thinking about my run. As soon as I get to the hotel I change, stretch, and I’m out the door. Making my runs a priority always makes me feel happy and healthy and ready to give a good performance later that evening.

I’ve run over the Brooklyn Bridge and next to Niagara Falls. I’ve run down the Las Vegas Strip and along the Pacific Ocean. I’ve run trails in Pittsburgh and beaches in Florida, mountains in California and roads in the heartland.

Sometimes I have to run on a treadmill. Sometimes I have to run slower when I’m tired or shorter distances when I don’t have much time to spare. Sometimes my iPod isn’t charged and I run to the sound of my own thoughts. Sometimes I run on a track and sometimes I run around the parking lot of my hotel just to be outside.

It doesn’t matter. I don't understand when someone says their run was “boring” or the treadmill is “horrible”. What a gift it is to be able to move; to have two working legs that bound effortlessly through each stride, pushing against the ground and carrying me forward to each glorious mile. For me, running is a celebration of life. It’s self-expression that lets me say “I’m alive and I get to run.”

When I’m tired from an early flight or several long days of travel in a row, I try to remind myself that I get to run. I repeat the mantra in my head if my morning is particularly challenging.

I get to run.

I wake up as my flight lands and grab my bag from the overhead compartment, sleepily muttering to myself, I get to run.

When I retrieve my luggage at baggage claim I’m thinking about how lucky I am that I get to run.

I turn the key in my rental car, sipping my third cup of coffee. I get to run.

I check into my hotel, change into running clothes, stretch, smile, and head out the door. Finally, I get to run.

I’ve been on a hot streak all year long. I haven’t missed a workout and haven’t missed a mile. I’ve run 5Ks, 10Ks, 10 milers, and even a Half Marathon. Plus, I’ve worked on my speed, hills, and more. I even prioritized stretching when my mileage increased - something that has been a challenge for me in the past. So you can imagine my utter disappointment two and a half weeks ago when I fell down the stairs and dislocated my shoulder.

One of my first thoughts was "Fuck, what about running? I won’t be able to run.”

After the initial shock and pain subsided and I returned home from the ER, I was slightly depressed for a few days. I couldn’t move much and had to stare at the other runners in Chicago from my apartment window. At my doctor’s recommendation I had to skip a race I’d been building up to for 8 weeks.

My streak was broken. I was crushed.

A few days passed and I got my head on straight. I kept up with my physical therapy exercises and started biking at home. Then last week my therapist said I was doing so well that I could go out for a run last weekend. I did - and it was incredible.

I bundled up - it’s already getting brutally cold here in Chicago - and hit one of my favorite loops. I avoided the steps I’ve tripped over before and the curb that caused an ankle sprain last year. I felt sluggish and uncomfortable. I couldn’t help but to constantly think about my shoulder and worry that any given step might dislodge it and send me back to the hospital.

But after a half mile I stopped worrying and my old self took over. I get to run.

Each uncomfortable, plodding step was a reminder that I was back outside, doing my favorite thing. Each bead of sweat fell in slow motion as I ran along the beautiful shore of Lake Michigan. I felt my feet contact the ground and made a point to remember that feeling. One day I won’t get to feel that any more, but now - now I get to feel it, weeks before I thought I’d get to feel that again. And what a glorious feeling!

I’ve run two more times since then and am starting to feel like my old self. There’s a gaping two week hole in my calendar but I don’t care. There are plenty of gaps along the way but I keep lacing up my shoes and hitting the path. Each time I do, I end a string of empty days and start a new streak. And I have way more successful streaks than empty ones.

The truth is the unbroken chain is a noble but ultimately unlikely result. Things happen. Life gets in the way. Mistakes are made. Every once in a while you’re going to forget to do your daily push-ups or be too busy to write your daily word goal. It’s bound to happen sooner or later.

I try to approach it differently. I think of successful days as “Drops In A Bucket”. For every day I accomplish my goal, the bucket gets a little more full. Over time I may miss days or possibly even weeks, but hopefully I’m able to use a majority of my days to keep adding those drops. And when I look back my metaphorical bucket is way more full than when I began.

I love looking back on my year and seeing that I ran 265 out of 365 days or realizing that I accomplished my writing goal on more days than I forgot to write. Those are huge wins. My running and writing buckets are getting full to the brim.

Most advice I read is like those "One Size Fits Most” hats you see in stores. They don’t work for me. I’m a little taller and bigger than the average person and, as much as I wish they were, it inevitably doesn’t work for me.

It’s important to remember that what works for others more than likely might not work the same way for you. So know that when you see that viral TED Talk on productivity or hear about the work habits of insanely successful people, you have to take it with a grain of salt.

Seinfeld was getting paid really well to write every single day. Olympians get to run every day because it’s their job. For the rest of us, we have to make our goals work with our schedules and be content with our individual results. You may wish you were working harder or had more time but always remember that it’s a gift just to be filling our buckets up at all.

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Other Thoughts:

• I saw “The Irishman” the other night. It was extraordinary but at three-and-a-half hours(!) long I can’t help but wonder if Scorsese’s idea of what cinema should be isn’t suitable for today’s audiences. No one around us had the attention span to make it more than 20 minutes without checking their phones, talking, or going to the restroom. It’s a real shame because the movie was phenomenal.

• Currently Reading: “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport

• It has already snowed twice in Chicago! I’m not ready for this…

• Check out this week’s video and be sure to Subscribe to my YouTube Channel:

Please Rate This Post 5 Stars On Trip Advisor...I'm Begging You

Everywhere I go someone needs something.

“Leave us a review on TripAdvisor! Like us on Facebook!”

“Join our mailing list so we can invade your inbox!”

“FIVE STARS, please, please, pleeeeeease!”

It’s exhausting.

Look, I get it. Our society rewards people for getting reviews so you can climb the ranks and get more business. I have to seek out reviews and feedback for what I do, too. Even so, it has become an annoying and constant interruption throughout my everyday life. And, it’s a flawed system that can be easily gamed.

When I go somewhere - a restaurant, escape room, haunted house, the theater, you name it - I want to have a fully immersive and memorable experience. I want to be transported. I want an escape. What I don’t want is to be constantly reminded that you need my review because that’s the only way you can survive as a business. What that tells me is that you’re not here for me right now and I don’t matter. You’re only thinking about using me to get another customer so you can use them to get another person and so on.

I had a speech instructor once who told us that our audiences would most likely only remember a small portion of what we spoke about, but of that small portion they were quite likely to remember our closing words. When you end my experience at your establishment with a desperate “Don’t forget to leave us a review!” that’s what I end up remembering. I don’t remember the ambience or the aroma wafting from the kitchen. I start to forget the fun I had and, instead, I only remember that you chose to end our exchange the same way everyone else does: asking me to do something else for you.

I’ve already given you my time and money, but now you need something else? I think that’s an awful way to do business.

I try to handle this differently. My goal is to do such an exceptional job that my clients literally ask me “What else can we do to help you? Please let us know!” Many of them book my services year after year because they know they can rely on me and I will go above and beyond to make them look great and give them a successful, memorable event. They gave me rave reviews because they wanted to - not because I pressured them into it.

I guess I'm biased but I think that’s a better approach.

I try not to read reviews. Not only am I searching for more mystery but I also like to make my mind up for myself. I don’t want a series of algorithms to determine the best restaurant within driving distance, which movie I should see, or why one coffee shop is inferior to another. I’ll roll the dice and see what happens. Maybe it’s the worst coffee shop I’ve ever been to…or maybe my tastes are different than Username “KingOfReviews87” and I end up really liking it. You never know.

I was reading Martin Scorsese’s brilliant op-ed in The New York Times this week and it really got me thinking. If you weren’t aware he’s been in the news lately for saying that “Marvel movies aren’t cinema.” As you can imagine, superhero fans are up in arms. But I think he makes some great points.

I especially like this passage:

“…everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way. That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.”

I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between this essay I was already working on and the thoughts of Scorsese. It seems to me that Marvel films are the Trip Advisor top-reviews of movies. They’re doing everything they can to be the biggest, best, highest-grossing, most popular films. But they aren’t challenging how I think about the form or expanding my knowledge as a cinephile.

I judge a movie or book or restaurant or venue or experience by how much it lingers in my mind after it’s over. If I’m still thinking about it the next morning then it was probably pretty good. If I’m still thinking about it days or even weeks later then I know it was really great. And on those rare occasions when I can’t stop thinking about it for months or years, well, that’s when I know it’s included in my personal favorites.

I’ve never felt that way with a Marvel movie. The ending always set me up for a sequel, which sets me up for another run of spin-offs and new storylines. I know some people like that, but it’s just not for me. The producers are thinking ahead - to the next plot-line, the next movie, the next franchise - and not focused on my experience right now. Just like business that are only using me for their next five-star review…

You know what does make me feel that way?

The melodies and lyrics of Hamilton - still bouncing around in my mind years after seeing it live. I was never asked to leave a review or like a social media page. And I only sought it out from (incessant) positive word-of-mouth reviews. Everyone was right, it was as good - no, even better than they say.

A brilliant live theatrical performance makes me feel that way. So do great novels, good music, and hilarious comedians. I saw the Monet exhibit at The Art Institute earlier this year and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Those are the types of experiences I want from everything I do.

A few days ago I saw the movie “Parasite” by visionary director Bong Joon-ho. (It’s so metaphorical!) It was a masterpiece. It totally blew me away and I can’t get it out of my mind. I highly recommend it.

It asked nothing of me, except my time and attention. And it gave me everything I want from a film: laughs, tears, beautiful moments, and some hard truths. My final moment was what I wanted the experience to be - not a review or a hashtag request. No coupon or feedback form. Just rolling credits so I could linger in the feeling that it had given me. My memory of the movie is pure and intact from start to finish, a feeling that is getting harder to come by these days.

And now, I want to tell everyone about it. I want you to see it so I can talk about it with someone else. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen all year. (This just happens to tie in to this post but I’m serious. Don’t read the reviews and spoil it. Just go in cold. It’s worth it.)

When you give me the best experience possible I will go to the ends of the earth to let people know about it. I’ll become your biggest spokesperson and shout your name from the rooftops. Your top-notch service and memorable atmosphere will have tricked me into becoming an unpaid publicist for your brand.

Isn’t that better?

I think so and if you do, too, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave me a comment or let your friends know how much you enjoyed this post. Use the links below to share it on social media or forward it via e-mail. It really helps me out and I truly appreciate it!

Please. I’m begging you.

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Other Thoughts:

• Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes after last week’s post. I'm feeling much better now. I got clearance to go out for my first run since dislocating my shoulder. It’s supposed to be warm this weekend so I’m going to give it a shot and see how I feel.

• What I’m Reading Now: The Incomplete Book of Running

• No video this week because of my ER visit but I’ll be back next week. (Are you subscribed?!)

• I’m headlining three shows at the Chicago Magic Lounge this weekend. Hope to see you there!