July 10-12: District of Columbia

Friday, July 10^th, 2009

Woke up to discover that I have once again sunburned all of my exposed flesh. And, once again, this has taken place during a show where I am exposing much of said flesh.

Headed on down early to check out a series of previews going on at the beer tent – I’m doing one myself tomorrow, and I wanted to get a sense of the crowd/venue. It was initially discouraging, going from one staff member to another, none of whom had heard of it. I finally went to Fort Fringe and asked someone there, who looked at me in confusion and promptly disappeared for five minutes before returning with the information.

Watched a few previews. These could all be fine shows – but I’ll most likely never know, since I barely heard a word of what was said. Took several notes. I’m pretty sure I can handle this performance-wise – I have a lot of experience with this kind of venue – but I’m not sure what piece to do. As I’ve discovered working my material at various open-mic events in the Twin Cities, this show doesn’t excerpt well. Something strongly visual would be nice, but the densely-composed prose of the various pieces and prophecies are difficult enough to follow while in context, let alone outside of it. Must think on it.

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Four people in the audience tonight – this was likely due to the fact that I was scheduled against one of the Fringe’s after-parties. The band was playing in the venue immediately adjacent to mine, and started playing about halfway through the show. I spent a good chunk of it trying to shout my dialogue over their musical stylings. I’ve had better times.

I was approached afterwards by some dude from Mississippi, who asked me if I was from Louisiana. I’ll take this as a compliment – one of the great tests of an accent is whether or not you can fool the locals.

(I’ve also been asked, more than once, if I’m a Gulf War veteran. Er, no – particularly in light of the fact that I would have been, what, eight during Operation Desert Storm? I saw it on TV, though. That’s almost as good.)

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Hung out late flyering the crowd, then spent about a half hour trying to find a cab to take me back to my billeters’ place. There were plenty to choose from, but none that would take me where I was trying to go – mainly because, while I had the address, I’m not a local, don’t know the neighborhood, and couldn’t direct them. (Er, if a cab won’t take out-of-towners to places they don’t know, doesn’t that kind of defeat much of the purpose of a cab service?)

In any case, finally hit up a bunch of locals who gave me a few numbers to call. No answer at the first one, but the second was more successful. When the cab showed up, the guy still didn’t know what the place was, but this time I refused to get out until he pulled a map out of his trunk and found it. (Spent about five dollars doing so, but at that point? Well worth it.)

Saturday, July 11^th, 2009

Had two people in my audience today. Sucktitude.

I guess at this point I’m trying to regard my work here as a series of (ludicrously expensive) dress rehearsals. And the material is tightening up. I looked up during the Merlin scene to see half of my audience – well, one woman – sitting with a big goofy smile plastered across her face. And suddenly it hit me that, yeah. This scene is fun. That’s why I like this character. Most of Merlin’s lines are plucked directly out of Geoffrey and Malory, and they have a playfulness to them that’s still kind of irresistible.

And the scene between him and Pellinore is really charming – one of those classic, bizarre relationships that form between two people who have absolutely nothing in common. It’s a light comedy scene, and it can be played as such. Lord knows, the show badly needs it.

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Dear Minnesota Fringe Festival:

Thank you for teaching me how to work an outdoor venue.

Sincerely, Me.

I have a lot of experience doing street theatre. I have a lot of experience working bars. Both paid off at my preview. I ran up, snapped off a few quick jokes, and dived into the middle of a scene.

I chose the battle between Pellinore and Arthur. It has some physicality to it, is one of the sequences that I perform off-script, and is one that, given the nature of the preview, can possibly be played as a pulse-pounding action scene.

And I discovered that, hey. It’s not that it can be played that way – it should be played that way. It’s two guys beating the hell out of each other in the middle of the desert for no good god damn reason – it brutal and senseless and awesome. I’ve been trying to play it with the same ponderous, affected delivery of the prophecies, and that’s a mistake.

In any case, it’s not like this was an amazing or life-changing event or anything – but it was fun. I was up there, rocketing through the scene, working the crowd, and they were with me. And it reinforced for me that this piece can be really, really fun with a crowd to bounce it off of.

It’s a shame that none of them will be coming to see the show. I wish I understood why.

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ME: I saw a show yesterday, and the woman doing it seemed shocked that I was there. What’s up with that? Don’t the artists see each other’s shows here?

LES: I have my usual rule about seeing other artist’s shows: if they don’t see mine, I don’t see theirs.

ME: Huh. I usually do the passive-aggressive Midwestern thing, where I go to their shows and then they feel guilty and have to see mine.

LES: (rolling his eyes) Honey, I’m from L.A. We don’t do guilt.

So the after-parties have been consistently thinning out at eleven. In many respects, this feels like the Bizarro Fringe – audiences don’t hang out late; locals don’t go to see the out-of-towners; patrons are unusually resistant to postcards; participants don’t talk to each other.

The last point is particularly weird. I do what I usually do at Fringes – walk up to either individuals or groups, jump into their conversations, start joking around with them – and they either just stare at me or ignore me. This may be tied to the fact that nobody seems to really be drinking, either. (At three dollars a pop for a PBR at the beer tent! They’re practically giving this stuff away!) I don’t know if this just an aspect of Midwestern beer culture that doesn't extend out this far, but I feel like I’m having an extraordinarily difficult time connecting with people. At any other Festival, after the first two days I’d have a crew of people I was looking forward to every night. Out here, I work the crowd for about fifteen minutes then end up sitting by myself until I go home. Bizarro.

Which isn’t a knock on the administration – far from it. The staff seems to be aware of this stuff and working hard to build an accessible Fringe culture – they’ve set up the beer tent (which very few people use), space for audience reviews online (which nobody writes on) – I don’t know what it takes to connect with this crowd.

I’m frustrated about my lack of audience numbers, but somewhat relieved to see that it seems to be across-the-board for out-of-towners (i.e. it’s not just me). I keep wracking my brain to think of what I could have done differently. I sent out press releases (snail- and e-mail) several weeks in advance; contacted countless special interest groups (everyone from the SCA to the local Republican Party); and spent every night flyering crowds. At any other Festival, I’d be selling respectably at this point. But I just feel so exhausted; I’ve been pouring out an incredible amount of energy and getting nothing in return.

Sunday, July 12^th, 2009

Went to explore the National Mall with Les – he was pretty excited about approaching the White House, but I could never quite lose track of the fact that we were approaching one of the most secure buildings on the planet. Nobody approaches that structure without being closely watched, and I wonder if somewhere our identifications are being matched up to a set of profiles:

NAME: phillip andrew bennett low

POLITICS: libertarian

VERBOSITY: maximum

SEXUALITY: excessive hetero posturing, likely homosexual

RELIGION: sort-of Catholic but whiny about it

PROFESSION: pompous douchebag

WEAKNESSES TO BE EXPLOITED IN HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT: cheap whiskey and self-loathing

ETHNICITY: possible Chinese sympathies

PERIL: yellow

LES: Look! There’s people just hanging out on the front lawn! Michelle said this was going to be “The People’s White House.”

ME: (snorting) Right. And just how far do you think I’d get if I jumped the barricade and bolted for the front doors?

(pause)

ME: I’m the reason they have security measures, aren’t I?

I am super-skeptical of the “People’s White House” thing, though. To the best of my knowledge, the last time anybody really took a populist approach to that building was during the impromptu kegger following Andrew Jackson’s inauguration. Which arguably did more damage to it than the War of 1812.

(Okay, so I’m an American history geek.)

Walking around, I’m struck by the odd fact that while in terms of population this is a huge city, in terms of geography it’s not much more than a small town: most everything seems to be within walking distance of each other, and I’m learning my way around fairly quickly.

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Spent a chunk of the day handing out postcards. Over the years, I’ve come to regard this as an interesting improvisational exercise: I see people walking towards me, and have to assimilate as much information as quickly as possible (what are they wearing? What are they saying? What are they looking at?) and incorporate it into a one-line marketing segue. (If I don’t come up with something in time, I have my usual repertory of lame jokes to fall back on.)

I may have delivered my worst marketing line yet, though:

HER: Oh, I wanted to see this one.

HIM: Yeah, but look – it’s sold out.

ME: Hey! You know what’s not going to be sold out? (whipping out my postcard) This show!

I’ve been encountering a lot of resistance to my usual flyering schtick here – people really seem to be working to avoid me. I get a few laughs and friendly conversations out of it, but a much greater proportion than usual of people wrinkling up their noses and giving me the vibe of “Oh…is this going to be good?”

I don’t know. It’s Fringe! Why do you care if it’s going to be good or not?

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Hit my fourth performance tonight, with a grand total of one – yes, one – person in the audience. This entailed the usual weirdness of a sparsely-attended storytelling show – do I just stare at him the whole time? Do I avoid looking at him?

So, any hope of turning this around has pretty much evaporated. That makes this Festival – with the sole exception of my mime shows – the worst-attended experience of my career. Yes, that includes when I was just starting out. Yes, that includes the Spirit in the House Festival. Yes, that includes my other out-of-town performances. So, am I coming back to this one? Oy! Expensive lesson learned.

July 9: District of Columbia

Pilgrim in an Unholy Land

From colleagues who have spent time in DC, I’ve heard two points consistently. The first is that it’s a place rife with irony, sprawling monuments alongside absolutely wretched poverty. The second is that it is, oddly enough, much like any other small town which revolves around a single industry: only in this case, that industry is the government. (As I discovered sending out press releases, when a not-insignificant percentage of e-mail addresses were ending in .gov. I sent the Pentagon a press release. I can’t imagine I have a huge audience there.)

The latter point being true: being a libertarian in DC feels kind of like being a Toyota manufacturer in Detroit.

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What little driving I’ve had to do within the District has been stressful enough that I immediately obtained a metro pass. My changeover actually takes place at the Pentagon – it’s a major employer, after all – which means that I spend much of my ride alongside men and women decked out in full uniform and regalia. It occurs to me that I’m in a confined space with some of the most remarkable intellects in the world, dedicated to developing the most efficient possible ways to kill people. I’m torn between thinking that this is really creepy and kind of awesome.

Drives home the point, though, that this is a place with an omnipresence of military culture – whereas in Minnesota what I’m wearing isn’t much more than a theatrical device, out here it’s part of our day-to-day reality. I don’t know how that influences audience perception of what I’m doing.

Managed to swing into the Fringe Central location (here called Fort Fringe) and drop off my postcards. Eyeing the postcard table, I saw the usual combination of exclamation points and naked flesh. Why am I producing a show like this in this venue?

An Inauspicious Opening

When I opened my very first Fringe show in Minneapolis, I had a sum total of three people in the audience. As time went on, I eventually built a reputation and relationships and stuff, and I don’t think that’s something I’m likely to go through in Minnesota again – at least, not anytime soon. Then, when I did the Iowa Fringe for the first time, I opened to three people. A humbling lesson – that whenever you hit the road, you’re starting over from scratch. So guess how many people I had in the audience for my DC opening? That’s right – three.

(I’m ashamed to say I derived some satisfaction from the fact that Les Kurkendaal had exactly zero people in his audience, for the show immediately following mine. I find this bewildering, and the two of us commiserated that it’s difficult for out-of-towners to open the Festival with no opportunity to build word-of-mouth. Seriously, considering the fact that I’ve had exactly no pre-Fringe coverage, three strangers spontaneously showing up for one of my Arthurian scripts is, like, Woodstock.)

I’ve definitely had better times in front of an audience. One of the listeners dozed off several times during the show, another was doing her level best to give me polite attention, and the third was a theatre critic who alternated between rolling his eyes and loudly sighing.

And, in true opening-night tradition, his review sprung up that night, and wasn’t terribly kind. My impulsive responses are mostly stupid defensive ones (although I’ll confess that the “below-average storyteller” line stung) – I find myself wanting to say things like “Yes, but this is about a style of storytelling that revolves around character revelation as opposed to character transformation” and “Surely Pellinore’s stubborn refusal to learn anything from his experiences is one of the key points” – but all of those statements are foolish, because whether there’s any truth to them or they’re simply rationalizations, they do nothing to increase the audience’s enjoyment of the show.

Still. Been on the receiving end of countless negative reviews. Why does this one get under my skin? Because I like this piece. And I haven’t really invested this much of myself in a project since my last similarly-themed disaster – 2005’s Camelot is Crumbling. Which is one reason I haven’t done a project like this in years.

It’s a labor of love. One question I’ve been getting a lot is whether people think I’m likely to get tired of this show with such a long tour schedule: and I don’t think I will. (I could well grow tired of the lukewarm response, if this is any indication of how audiences are likely to continue. Past experience suggests that this is probable.) I haven’t really allowed myself to sit down with these source texts in a while, and now they’re all I’m reading. I could cheerfully write nothing but Arthurian scripts for the rest of my life (this is my seventh): if I thought an audience might let me get away with it, I’d try to do so.

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Did the usual booze ‘n’ schmooze following the show, and fell back pretty easily into my more aggressive marketing patterns – and also hooked up with several people I’m likely to see again further along on the tour. (Indianapolis is apparently going to be inundated with out-of-towners this year.) My elevator speech was met with the usual combinations of blank-faced “interesting”s and a few “Wow! That sounds hilarious!”s.

Towards the end of the evening, I was approached by a local storyteller, and pleased to note that we’d both heard of each other’s work: she knew of my history with the Rockstars, and I knew of hers with SpeakeasyDC, which is, as nearly as I can tell, our east-coast doppelganger. I wonder if some kind of collaboration would be possible: must reflect and discuss.

Evening closed with my hosts driving into town after last call, because they are BBE (which stands for Best Billeters Ever. Or possibly Big Breast Expansion. It can be hard to tell out here).

July 6-8: Michigan/Ohio

Soon as I crossed the latest border, I found signs posted every twenty yards – pretty consistently throughout the state – reminding that if I injure a road worker, it will cost me $7500 and 15 years.

Now entering Michigan – birthplace, according to some, of both the modern labor union and the American middle class. Or, as my hosts put it, the miner’s canary of America. Which is a rather ominous analogy, if there’s any accuracy to it.

Rolled into Ann Arbor, and from what little I’ve seen of it it’s the classic university town, all sunshine and red brick. The presence of the college has apparently done much to insulate it from the economic catastrophe afflicting the rest of the state. My sister lives in what appears to be a totally idyllic neighborhood, and I can tell that I’m going to enjoy my time here. It may just be familiarity – one of the advantages of family, after all, is that we all pretty much decided how we were going to feel about each other for the rest of our lives many years ago – but she and her husband have, in some indefinable way, created an environment similar to the one I remember growing up in.

Her husband and I spent much of the evening standing over a barbecue in their backyard, discussing kitschy inventions that could be mass-produced to make us stupid amounts of money. And, really – isn’t that image what the American dream is all about?

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Being a big geek apparently runs in the family.

I spent much of the day with my ten-month-old nephew, who has the most remarkable attention span I’ve seen in a child that age – staring at new stimuli intently for minutes on end. This may an indication of intelligence. Or stupidity. Time will tell.

My sister had me take him around downtown while she ran into work to take care of some business there. I spent my time walking extremely slowly, constantly checking on him, and eyeing strangers suspiciously. This leads me to believe that I will be one of those obnoxiously controlling, overprotective Chinese fathers.

People kept stopping to talk to us, and I’m not 100% certain whether this was due to the baby or the town – almost certainly both. The town’s the same size as the one I grew up in, only with more ethnic and cultural diversity – I saw three used bookstores in a single city block. I don’t have the faintest idea how a community of this size can support that. (I essentially grew up on the Main Street immortalized by Sinclair Lewis (who, incidentally, is undoubtedly Minnesota’s laureate. Infinitely superior to that hack Fitzgerald (and isn’t this a lot of parentheses?)).) My trip thus far puts me in mind of Goldilocks and the Three Bears – if the farmhouse was too small, and Chicago was too large, this place feels just right. Well, not for any sort of long-term arts career, but it’s lovely to visit.

Spent a lot of time looking over my script, and I found myself (like, I suppose, many who view my scripts) thinking about boredom – particularly following my reflections in Out of Focus. One recurring problem I find in my profession – and it’s a hell of a note for an entertainer – is that large swaths of the population seem to be bored by the things that interest me – just as I’m bored by the things that interest them. (One reason, perhaps, why I’m frequently asked to do more autobiographical work. Which always leads me to think, really? You want to watch me standing onstage just talking about my life? When I can do all this other cool stuff like blather on about medieval manuscripts for an hour?)

I recall an artist’s discussion taking place at the Center for Independent Artists. I’m usually very impatient with these kinds of discussions – I find myself thinking of that anecdote about the centipede, who, when asked how he managed to walk with so many legs, immediately fell over. There’s a part of me that worries that examining the process too closely will somehow destroy my ability to use it.

I do remember one guy – can’t recall his name, but he was a slam poet – who made, I thought, a very apt analogy – that performance is like making love: it’s possible to do it in such a way that you just satisfy your own needs, and it’s possible to do it in such a way that you just satisfy their needs – but everyone’s going to have a lot more fun if you compromise, do a few things you like and a few things they like. It’s about seeking mutual satisfaction.

Which isn’t to say that I haven’t done performances where I felt like I was being gang-raped by the audience.

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

I had a splendid time at all of the other places I visited – but they were alien enough to me that they never felt truly comfortable, and I was ready to hit the road again. This is a first place I’ve been where I really found myself dragging my feet leaving.

My brother-in-law – a Michigan boy who went to school in Minnesota – observes that the key difference between drivers of the two states is that, while Michigan drivers rely on eye contact and constant communication, Minnesota drivers will tend to stare straight ahead, doing their best to ignore the other people on the road. My experience has borne this observation out.

Avoiding toll roads has kept me off of the highways, and led me to note that one of the great plains states looks much the same as the next, and that all of them live up to their collective name. Ohio, in particular, is huge, flat, and led me to carefully evaluate suicide.

Driving through, I find myself thinking about the concept of the heartland. There’s a certain absurdity to trying to extrapolate any meaningful data from such a small sample – I’ve been to Chicago several times, and each time I feel like I find a new face of that city, because there’s easily a dozen different cities within its limits. Everyone I speak to has a different definition, and are intensely defensive of those definitions. The assertion seems to be that you’re not truly Midwestern if you’re not from the proper cultural region, an assertion I find objectionable – much as I object to those who claim I’m not truly Chinese-American because I didn’t grow up in a Chinese community.

But it causes me to reflect on that idea that is, most likely, the unifying theme of all my scripts, and certainly central to this one – that language dictates behavior. Well, indirectly – language dictates perception which dictates behavior. State borders seem arbitrary at times – it seems strange to me to claim that North and South Dakota are culturally distinct, or that north and south California really have much of anything to do with each other – but the creation of a name creates a collective identity. I am a Minnesotan, whether that term has any meaning or not – but the fact that we’ve created that name, that word, has created a shared culture.

Crossed into West Virginia, then rapidly criss-crossed through three states, with all manner of winding cliffside roads. I was concerned about falling asleep at the wheel in Ohio, but at least if I did I wouldn’t end up pulling a Toonces the Driving Cat.

In any case, as soon as I crossed the bridge from Ohio into West Virginia, I looked up – and saw an eagle circling overhead. I am now officially out of the Midwest.

July 4-6: Illinois

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

I’ve ended up driving through about a dozen small Illinois towns as part of my effort to avoid toll roads. Thanks, Tomtom.

Out of Focus
Sunday, July 5th, 2009


I own two of these books. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out which two.

Whoo, culture shock: leapt from the farmhouse to a meat-market dance club in the largest city in the Midwest. Was introduced to the Berlin Club in Chicago, and didn’t get out until five in the morning. (Five in the morning? Score one for Illinois over Minnesota.)

I’m told that the turnout – which I found overwhelming – was significantly less than usual, most likely due to it being Independence Day. (I actually forgot it was the Fourth – I know, I’m a bad Libertarian – so I was alarmed by the sporadic explosions taking place around me as I drove into the city. Apparently in Chicago, the official fireworks display takes place on the third – meaning that the fourth is devoted to awesomely illegal fireworks displays. We walked down at least one street where vision was significantly obscured by smoke, explosions taking place all around us. I wonder how many war veterans were having terrible, terrible flashbacks.)

The club was definitely one of those environments where the particular combination of chromosomes and gender preferences was not stacked in favor of a heterosexual male. I enjoyed dancing, although the number of wandering Captain McFeelyHands around various regions of my pelvis – steadfastly ignoring whatever timid, Minnesotan signals I was trying to give – cut short the experience a few times. Which led me to start wondering if enjoying myself too much would be sending the wrong signals, and trying to dial it down. And that led me to wonder, huh. Is this what chicks feel like all the time at these things?

I’ve spent a lot of time ridiculing my dad’s inability to focus on anything for any length of time – hustling everyone out to events, then immediately losing interest and hustling everyone out – but I definitely have a streak of it, myself, and I find it extraordinarily difficult to maintain my focus in environments like this. I’m reconsidering my earlier statement about requiring constant stimulation, because that’s exactly what places like this revolve around – but the stimulation is sensual, attempting to drown your consciousness in a way that’s visual, aural, and tactile – and with too much undifferentiated information to process, whole sections of my brain just lose interest and go wandering. (Which is one of the reasons I find myself annoyed by a lot of Bedlam Theatre’s work, but that’s a whole different essay.) Standing in the midst of the pounding music, flashing lights, and wandering hands, I find myself thinking I wonder what the oldest surviving sword is and which society produced it? and Are Superman’s abilities telekinetic or strength-based?

Mostly, though, I feel frustrated – disappointed at my inability to respond appropriately in social situations, and envious of those who can. Everyone around me seems to be having an awesome time – but I find myself thinking, huh. So this is what my dad feels like every time I drag him out to an art museum.

Monday, July 6th, 2009

My first apartment in Minneapolis was located near Dinkytown, next to the entrance to Highway 52. I used to leave my window open, so that I could go to sleep to the sound of traffic whizzing past. The apartment I’m staying at in Chicago is located next to a train station, which means that I get to wake up to the sound of bells and engines and whatnot.

(Why do I fetishize this stuff, anyway? Bears further examination.)

We had plans to hit the town on Sunday, but nothing seemed too terribly inspiring and we were frankly wiped from our evening of partying. While my hostess was at work, I spent the day with her partner, who’s an astonishingly cool lady, dripping with observations about the economic history of Chicago – I almost wish I’d been taking notes.

I definitely encountered an ideological leap at the Berlin Club. The environment doesn’t exactly lend itself to conversation, but there were a few political palavers shouted over the copious background noise, mostly with dudes trying to pick me up. (I am apparently far more attractive to homosexual men than heterosexual women. Le sigh.)

(Another sign that I’m back in the city – being greeted with stunned, open-mouthed shock at mentioning that I wasn’t an Obama supporter. As usual, my irrationality was forgiven once I clarified that I wasn’t a Republican. I decided I probably wouldn’t be speaking too much that evening.)

I assume that a shared political background is part of the unspoken social contract of entering the club, but it’s something I find with most communities –if I grin and say nothing, the assumption is that I share their core beliefs. (And once they’ve been talking for a while, you feel guilty correcting them.) Thus, in what little I could hear over the sound of music, my fellow conversationalists chattered on about the things that, of course, all rational people know: that conservatives are an undifferentiated body of white males who are simultaneously brilliant, conniving manipulators and blithering idiots; that military personnel are knuckle-dragging orangutans; that we require a centralized economy to protect us from the rigors of the free market. Much like the conservative groups I inhabit all assume that I share their homophobia and blind militarism and sexual repression. (Well, okay on that last point, but just because *I’m* hopelessly neurotic about sex doesn’t mean that I think that everyone else needs to be.)

I recall a science-fiction novel I read several years back – it wasn’t terribly well-written, and painfully heavy-handed in places, but it had a fairly interesting background. It details a dystopian America, brought about by a single invention which serves two functions. The first is that it enables people to vote on each individual issue from the privacy of their own homes – and that this anonymity unleashes a collective savagery in the American people. (Thus, perhaps, proving John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.) It replaces public discourse with a kind of unacknowledged mob rule; in other words, it replaces a representative republic with a direct democracy. The other function the invention serves is to allow individuals to control the information that they receive.

Now, what strikes me about the last point -- leaping from rural Wisconsin to Chicago nightlife -- is that this is something that we’ve already achieved. It’s possible to entirely insulate yourself from information that you don’t want to receive, and in fact that’s what most of us already do: conservatives watch Fox News and listen to AM talk radio, while liberals watch CNN and read the New York Times. With the rise of comedy shows and the blogosphere (guilty!), it’s possible to process news *entirely* through the filter of your choice. So it’s no wonder that when we hear anyone speak from outside of our self-created information bubbles, they sound like lunatics to us.

Not that I have a solution – the alternative, I suppose, is information controlled from a centralized source. But the problem with democratizing that is that it hinges on the idea that individuals make good decisions about educating themselves, which is a dubious proposition at best. Either way, it’s definitely a trend that I find troubling.

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One reason I’m glad to be getting out of Chicago – the traffic. Oy.