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We Don’t Do Porn — a new music video from WCProductions

Whenever we mention our name, WCProduction (Wet City Productions), there’s always a looks or a question which we have a standard response — We Don’t Do Porn — and we really don’t. check out the website for more music videos, short films, comedies, etc.

It’s Madeline Long in “The Illusioness”

It’s Madeline Long attempting one of the riskiest illusions in the history of magic. Even the great Harry Houdini never dared take this challenge (and we’re pretty sure the Davids Blaine and Copperfield don’t even know about it).

Madeline, on acting in Chicago

My left hand is stuck in the garbage disposal
while my right acts
and a snow storm
is trying to blow me over.

- Madeline Long, 12.22.08

When Love Comes Around, I’m Gonna Catch That Train (or, it’s on mornings like this)

It’s on mornings like this when all the faces on the el are dead silent staring into the void that is their upcoming routine in an office or behind a counter… mornings when only a few passengers are reading the paper or listening to their iPods… mornings when Josh feels lucky to be alive and although his fate for the day is much like everyone else on the train, there is something about him, maybe his souls seems to breathe a different air.

Josh surely isn’t the coming Messiah, to those waiting, nor does he hold even the smallest of answers as to why, or how, what, where, when, etc.

It could be love and most likely is… Yes, we’ll say it is because it’s the truth, but regardless, it’s on mornings like this, our protagonist, a struggling writer, struggling in the sense that he is still working towards being able to quit this average daily existence and acquire one of someone who eats from his writing.

It’s on mornings like this that Josh misses the crowded ride of an overpopulated commute where everyone must stay alert less they bump into and invade another’s space, that sacred space held-tight with white knuckles on grimy silver poles jutting from faded train walls below adverts that everyone on the train has had embedded into their memory over the past month.

What’s the next stop? How many will get off? Will I acquire more space? How do I maneuver around these people to get a dose of the oxygen everyone sitting down owns?

It is a bustling mass that hovers over the dead silent who sit and stare up on mornings like this, probably thinking how lucky they are to be stagnant, waiting still for the end of the world, a so called rapture.

So you see, it is on mornings like this when it feels to Josh that he is the only one standing, living, he reminds himself of the more crowded days to remember he is not alone on this earth, or this train.

Livin’ On Credit

These things seem to happen more and more to the struggling writer in Chicago whose day job it is to keep a website up-to-date for a medium sized law firm downtown. He gets paid well and enjoys the company of associates he inhabits office space with nine to five Monday through Friday. Developing a marketing strategy to keep the firm afloat and the team employed. The times being what they are though Josh continues to squander his money away towing the line and encountering days where he can only afford what his credit card will allow. So when a homeless man walks up to him and ask for change, the exchange goes something like this…

HOMELESS MAN: hey, man, you got change?

JOSH: no.

HM: i just got change from a white guy. he gave me fries. tried to give me his sandwich, but he was with his girl, you know?

J: uh huh.

HM: why is it that black man don’t give no money to black man? i got to get money from a white man? a white man gives money to a white man. why can’t a black man give no money to a black man?

J: i don’t know.

HM: that hurts me.

J: that sucks.

HM: i got really trully hurt. why is that? I don’t understand. come on, man. you got some change. get me on the bus? I got to get to 69th and Ashland. you know where that is? i can get on from there. I just need two dollars to get me there. four dollars, man. you got money.

J: i don’t have anything.

HM: you lying, man, but you’re all right. come on, man. why don’t no black man give black man money? i don’t get it. i couldn’t do nothing when I thought about that.

J: it’s fucked up.

HM: you got two dollars, I can get to 69th and Ashland. you get me there. come on, man. i’ll show you I get on the bus. i ain’t fuckin’ with you.

J: and i’m not fuckin’ with you.

HM: you lying, man.

J: i’m not lying.

HM: yeah you are, but you’re all right. let me tell you. look me in the eye. why does the white man give the white man money and the black man don’t give the black man money? that’s fucked up.

J: i agree.

HM: come on, man. i know you’re lying. get me on the bus.

J: i can’t get you on the bus.

HM: whatever.

[At this point Glenn Proud an actor and director friend of Josh approaches.]

GLENN: how’s it going?

JOSH: good.

HOMELESS MAN: come on, man. you got two dollars get me on the bus.

G: all i got it change. i don’t have two dollars.

HM: all right, all right. give me what you got.

G: here you go.

HM: thanks. come on, man. you got some change?

J: no.

HM: you lying, but you’re all right with me.

J: i’m not a liar.

HM: whatever.

The Homeless Man walks away. His attempt is what they call futile. Though Josh got to thinking long after his meeting with Glenn about the fate of LiveWire Chicago Theatre, the not-for-profit theatre company they run, and going to work another full day, twenty-four hours later, Josh got to thinking… “I should have swiped my CTA Pass.”¹

¹Because there may be a lot of homeless or stranded people out there I want to impart a wisdom. Ask the guy in the button down shirt and long black coat, slacks, nice shoes and a latte in his hand, “Can you swipe your card so I can ride the bus to see my girl.”

Mission Accomplished

Soldiers: The Desert Stand closed this afternoon. On the ride to the airport, my parents ask me, “How does it feel after a show closes.” Instinctively, I respond, “sad,” but that is brief. Work lives on and the folks who work with you and work with you well are the ones you miss and there in lies the sadness, however, you know, and again, those that work with you and work with you well are the ones that will live on, in the work and in life. Such good company, collaboration and collective thinking went on in this show, this production. Like a spider web or a world wide web, the chain reaction of positive union and future development occurred. This is what builds. And we are building it in America. Chicago. The shock waves ripple in the air though and air is universal. We’ve all got to breathe. Take a breath. Can you taste it?

CS Weekly is a great source of inspiration and that inspiration is visible in the area of my e-mails using Google Mail or Yahoo! or Hotmail that requires no scrolling…quotes. and sometimes it is beautiful even because sometimes both quotes speak to me…

Benjamin Franklin says, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Yes, and some of us do both, wouldn’t you say, Benny?

Jack Lemmon says, “It’s hard enough to write a good drama, it’s much harder to write a good comedy, and it’s hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.” As we sit in traffic to the airport which we will arrive in time for the parents to depart from their whirlwind visit to Chicago. to see the World Premiere of Soldiers: The Desert Stand, a serious play on war…written by their son…They ask, “got anything new on fire?” In fact, I’m writing an adaptation of Gorky’s The Lower Depths. I aim to set it in America. Today. A play about poverty. Economics. Drama. Comedy. Life.

In lieu of award acceptance speech, I mention the folks who made this play happen are Glenn Proud, Madeline Long, Cory Conrad, Allison McNeela, Chris Zdenek, Becca Coren, Danielle O’Farrell, Erin Barlow, Liz Larsen-Silva, Vanessa Hughes, Tresa Makosky, Amber Hilgenkamp, Anders Jacobson, Erin Fast, Eric Branson, Maya Kuper, Sebastian Aguirre, Deborah Proud, Suzanne Bracken, Parisa Leduc, the Side Project Theatre and LiveWire Chicago Theatre

The War Ends This Weekend

Final Weekend – buy tickets today!

Apartment Hunters

Playwright, Joshua Aaron Weinstein, and his girlfriend, actress, Madeline Long, are looking for their first apartment together. They have seen almost a dozen places in the past week and haven’t found anything…yet. Still over a month away from their expected moving date, things are tense, but optimistic. A nice place matters.

So, they enlisted the help of an Irish born rental agent, whom we will call, Sean, to protect his anonymity. They arrive late to the meeting due to the need for sustenance and he is on the phone when they arrive. Five/ten minutes later he is off and they all get in his car to check places out. The first place is nice and the three are engaged in conversation that is key to Sean’s success as an agent. Customer Service. As long as he’s friendly and attentive, Sean feels he does a good job. Madeline and Josh decide to pass on the first look as the bedrooms are small and the layout is odd.

The next place they look at seems to have been built and designed in the 70s. it lays right next to the el and a train goes by as the couple looks over the place. Not for them. They move on.

By now, Sean knows Madeline is an actress and Josh a writer. He inquires more about their work and they tell him about the play currently being produced by LiveWire Chicago Theatre, which is a dark comedy on the war. Sean bounces into a diatribe about America’s presence in Iraq and how it is never mentioned that an estimated 1 million Iraqis have been killed since the invasion. On the other hand, Sean goes on, it is important for America to establish a presence in the Middle East due to the price of oil, and our dependency on it. It’s a necessity to remain there for another 10 years while we find alternative resources, right?

In the midst of his statement, Sean relates an image of chickens stuffed in cages and how at first glance this is disturbing, but when you think about it, if we were humane and only kept a certain amount of chickens in the cages, the price of chicken would go up. more chickens equals less cost.

They walk into the third apartment on this note and there is a photo shoot going on. Madeline and Josh peak in, though they both know the place is not for them. Neither is the agent. The ride back to the office is awkward. Even though Sean is not getting a sale, he tells one last story about a woman he met in the back of a taxi. You see, she had crutches on and as she was getting in, at 3 in the morning, she didn’t hear the driver over the clatter say the cab was occupied. Sitting in the back was Sean, who didn’t care much because she was going his way and within two blocks, he had convinced her to go dancing at at bar open until 4am. Our assumption here was that Sean is a ladies man, but he finishes the story with, “I went to her wedding. so, that worked out.”

Later, Madeline and Josh talk about the day like it was the end of the world because nothing is out there that they like and looking for apartments is general misery… until they realize that 1) if America stays in Iraq for another 10 years, the Iraqi body count would reach over 3 million (and chances are, the price of gas will remain the same); 2) Madeline is a vegetarian, so why not let chicken prices go up, and show some humanity for once?; 3) Sean is apparently a loner and quite possibly jealous that these two are in love and moving in together; and 4) the city is vast, more apartments can be found and the perfect place is out there.

the search continues…

German Burgers

two cousins, Max, a biomedical engineer, and Josh, an unemployed writer, sit down in a German style diner, Christl’s for a late lunch. they are in the city of Palatine, a suburb very north and west of Chicago. a village. Josh, living in the city, took some time to get up to Max in Evanston. the drive to Palatine was about forty-five minutes. there is a drum store near Christl’s that was their original destination, but it closed at four today and it’s about four-twenty when Max and Josh press their nose up to the darken store looking at all the drum sets. Max says something very clever and to the point about the store being closed and the situation at hand. Josh doesn’t have paper or pen. it goes unrecorded. They walk over to Christl’s in the snow where they now both sit.

“You gotta try the Goulash!” shouts another patron who seems to be familiar with the management, but they also attempt to keep a distance when he gets in their face or up in their business as kids like to say. Apparently, the Goulash is good, but it stands at fifteen dollars which is a little steep for the unemployed writer and Max doesn’t seem too convinced that Goulash at Christl’s is very good. You could say it was a bit awkward.

Max and Josh come from a mixed conservative-reformed Jewish family. I should have said that earlier. I only mention it now…Well, it is the 21st century, but when you think about it and consider two Jews walking into a German diner… That and the drunk asshole yelling at them to order the Goulash.

Max and Josh order cheeseburgers and fries. A side of Goulash is available and they both partake. They discuss their general idiocy about not checking the closing time for the drum store especially in the 21st century when technology puts information right at their fingertips. The Super Bowl is discussed as Josh is a fan of the NY Giants. And they talk about the NCAA Duke Blue Devils, Max being from NC and a huge fan. The coffee tastes like water and with the amount of spices in the Goulash, the substance could be from any century. they are both fine. The cheeseburger is good. A good German cheeseburger. The pickle is carbonated. The juices. When you bite in, the pickle juice is carbonated. It’s weird, but satisfying.

The old lady in the kitchen needs a lot of attention apparently and the waitress spends her time defending the advances of the lingering drunk, talking with the cook and waiting on the few tables open, including Max and Josh. service is slow. no mind. no rush. it’s snowing outside, so might as well take your time. Then in time, two men, a younger and an older man come into the diner as if they own the place. Walking around. Checking things out. Laying their coats in a booth.

They do own the place. Or at least the older man does, but the younger is definitely a relative if not son. The place is nearly dead so there is no work to be done at the moment expect speed up the drunks departure with their complete indifference to what he has to say. They do this while sitting in the booth behind Max and Josh looking at a catalog with items such as swords and armor and other war supplies dating at least to the 20th century. Before the drunk left, he tried to start a heated debate about the quality of swords made in Pakistan, but the German owner refused to participate other than sighing or making comments such as “uh huh.”

Max and Josh were ready to leave and bear the winter snow back to Evanston then back to the city for Josh. Max had a gig that night. Josh had writing to do. maybe he wrote this. The waitress finally brought the check. They paid and left. This was a lengthy process as well in the German diner and Max and Josh were able to hear the younger man speak with his nose in a catalog, “It would be funny to show up wearing a Nazi uniform.” Some fair or event we assume the youth was going to dress up for, in a Nazi uniform. The father figure gave his son the same indifference he gave the regular drunk.

In silence two cousins walk back to the car. “Who closes at 4 o’clock?” Laughter.