Let me help you narrow it down.

It's saturday night. Only one more day to guess what the smell was. Here's a hint: Just because I said I looked at all the dishes and removed all the excess food into the trash doesn't mean I cleaned everything that I should have. Because I'm disgusting.
So far the people who guessed "old potatoes" and "...water from the A/C catch basin" are the closest.
Tomorrow night I will reveal the winner.

Chris and Scott Show done for now...

The short run of "The Chris and Scott Show" has ended and it has done approximately what we thought it would do. It made a few people mad and a few more people really happy. Mostly the people I expected to show up, did. Mostly the people who I expected to stay away, stayed away. Thanks to everyone for living up to my expectations.
The jist of our show was to say all the things on stage that we would normally say when we were drunk and angry at home. Of course, as is our way, we disguise it behind a friendly facade. We dropkicked a lot of names and picked on the tendencies of Chicago improvisors and, again, most were pleased, some were clueless that we were even talking about them. The Chicago Improv Community is like a paper towel that is it's own mess...because of the intense self-absorbtion.
The team that "opened" for us tonight finished their set and promptly walked downstairs to the dressing room area and licked their wounds. That's really not cool. You really should stick around and support the other teams...especially when then are so few people in the house and the other group watched you.
I maybe shouldn't have called it out during the curtain call but, then again, I'm glad I did. They were downstairs when I said it anyway so no harm done. Until the audience member they brought brings it up and then there'll be...oh wait there will be no repercussions.

FYI, the "What's that smell?" is still running. Only Scott and my wife know the answer as to what that smell was. I had two more guesses come to me live tonight. Two friends guessed "a dead mouse". Luckily, they were wrong.

For those of you wanting to post long replies to me (like my buddy webmistressjulia), get a blogspot account. It's free. It's fun. It's addictive. If you don't want to do that, just keep it under 360 words. Most people should edit their chatter anyway. However, this is my blog so I will not edit myself.

If you're out and about in downtown chicago tomorrow (or today now I guess), find me. I'll be in the big red trolley telling lies to the tourists about things no one could have any proof of. That is to say, the great Chicago fire was started by Steve Dahl during Disco Demolition. Prove to me it didn't happen.

Good night.

I will close the guessing soon...

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I know what the smell was.
So far both guessers have gotten really close in one way or another.

What was that smell?

Anybody wanna venture a guess as to what that smell was?

Feel free to post your reply.
It was quite a surprise. Although not completely a surprise.
I saw it and I said to myself, "Oh yeah. There it is."
I can't wait for any of you to guess.

The person who comes closest to guessing exactly what that smell was, gets one of my winning smiles and a handshake along with one beverage of your choice if we can schedule a time to meet. I must warn you, I'm never available. I'm even less available when someone is requesting the free beverages that I frequently promise. But if you know what I look like and where I live and can out run me, you can have that free beverage. But, once again, that's IF you can give the best guess as to what that smell was.

"What's that smell" was brought to you by Chris' Wild Theories and "The Chris and Scott Show".
No animals were harmed in the typing of this or any blog thus far.
Any similarities between "What's that smell" and any other blog are purely coincidental.

"My Generation"
Performed by The Who
Written by Pete Townsehend.
Not used with or without their permission.

"What's that smell?"

Searching for that smell.

I came home from work yesterday and I could smell that somewhere in the apartment there was a problem. Some old decomposing broccoli or meat or both. I had thrown all the food that I had left out away. So I assumed that the smell was in the trash. I took the trash out to the dumpster and went to work. I came home from work and it still stinks. What is it?
I'm looking around and I don't see any huge amounts of food on any of the dishes that need to be washed. No dirty clothes. Nothing sitting in the drains of the sinks. Yet the smell remains.
I have to find that smell and destroy it before the wife gets back from Kansas City.
I went to an improv rehearsal for a show that won't happen for another three weeks but a show, nevertheless, that was mostly my idea. I won't say anything about the show until it actually is put on. Superstitious and possessive of the idea. But I think it's gonna help good ol' Chemically Imbalanced Comedy out. There's been a stench at CIC for a while too. But I think I found that smell too.
I happened upon Don Hall while I was driving around. He runs WNEP theater here in Chicago and is a director as well. He was just standing at a busstop and my friend Scott (of the Chris and Scott Show) and I (also of the Chris and Scott Show) pulled over and took him home. It seemed that he was also searching for the source of a stink. It was the "ennui", as he put it, of a lot of the improv teams that do shows here locally due to the hard work put into the infrequent show to small audiences if any.
Apparently, Jon Favreau said "Chicago is the saltmines of comedy." Because you can work hard and be hilarious here for as long as you want and no one will ever see your show. The implication is that you have to move to New York or Los Angeles to "make it." That's alright. As I get older, I'm finding that I more treasure my relationships to friends, family and wife and I prefer success in shows and artistic endeavors that are actually based in my own feelings and opinions. Of course, success is relative to what you actually want to accomplish. So, I'm looking for the smell of success. It smells like a room full of at least 30 people who are only a little drunk, they're excited to be there and pleased with what I have to offer them in some paying show performed five nights a week.
I'm still searching for that smell.
Currently, I smell the missing food.

Long, lazy, weird.

Today was the kind of day that makes driving a trolley worthwhile. It's the kind of day where you get paid to take a leisurely lunch and fall asleep on the couch while trying to read something.
Then, after being handed a pretty good tip, I got to get an extra hour on the clock while I waited...you get paid for waiting when you drive a trolley. Everyone should get paid for waiting. Cuz then think of all the great stuff you could do while you were waiting. Then everybody would ultimately be getting paid for doing whatever they wanted and isn't that what communism really should have tried better to do?
Then when work was over, I got to practice my very limitted spanish with two four year olds who were helping their father trabajar. It was the only time I've had a textbook spanish conversation. "Me llamo Emilio." "Me llamo Chris. Mucho gusto." shake hands. "Senora Brown. Busco mis maletas." "Hola, Senior Dinosaurios. Donde esta el bano de los brontosaurios gigantes?" You know that sort of thing.

But the weirdest thing happened before I started work. I got a call from my little (half, adopted, step) brother Kevin. He, apparently was asked to do some beats for rapper Tech N9ne (that's not a mispelling. that's street cred.) Google Tech N9ne. He'll shoot you right through your wireless connection, he's that crazy.

So, I've been working for 10 years, trying to make something happen and my little brother goes in and out of prison, steals, smokes and tattoos himself up with graffiti and Tech N9ne walks into a club and asks if he would lay down some beats for him. Good for him. I hope he makes it huge so he can afford some good lawyers to get his checkered past expunged.

Y tu?

Busy week.

Today I pick up my wife from work.
Watch as she gets her nails done.
I'll try my best not to act like a jerk.
We'll try to squeeze in some fun.
We'll have dinner sometime after that.
Then I'll drop her off at Midway.
Because it's five days til she's back.
But, for now I must live in this day.

What will I do for the week?
What sort of trouble will I
Most indubitably seek?
Here' s a list of some things that I'll try.

I'll see how hard a roll can get if I leave it under the oven.
I'll see what anonymous women in pictures and film can be the subject of my lovin'.
I'll see who gives out first, my friends or myself, when I see how long I can go without a shower.
Then I'll lay in my filth for days at a time to test out Febreeze's power.

I'll see if I can wear my underwear like a bra, like the lesbians in that parade.
Then I will watch and declare what I saw with lights out while peeking through my window shade.
I'll sit in my car until the songs over and then change the station and listen some more.
Because there's nobody home right now and nobody wants me to go out and buy ice from the store.

Sure it sounds awesome. A party all week. Why don't I do this when she's here?
"I'm sure she'd enjoy all the experiments." You'd think. But she's made herself clear.
If when she returns five days from now, I'm filthy and wearing dishtowels,
If I've eaten so much colby cheese off the block that I'll need to pipe clean my bowels,
If the trash has piled up and blocked open the door to the fridge so that there is no border,
If she sees that only pure entropy could describe our living rooms level of order
If she smells something so strong she turns deaf, dumb and blind, I'll bet that she'd be upset
But this is the lesson I've taught to myself. And one I shall never forget.

Don't bother cleaning. Don't organize. Don't dust and do not vacuum.
Just clear out a path on the floor from the door of the apartment into the bedroom.
Because as bad as I am, and hard to control and impossible to understand,
I'm not the two girls age 10 and age 12 that for five days she must reprimand.

Emotional garbage or the kind I've perfected. Which type of junk would you choose?
When you're married to me, it's easy to see, whichever choice you make, you lose.

Things on the horizon.

This friday I'll be finishing the short and almost completely unattended run of "The Chris and Scott Show". If you're in Chicago and want to see a weird thing, come out to the Cornservatory (4210 n. Lincoln...I know it's a terrible name for a theater) at 11 this friday night. After three years of getting all my friends and co-workers to come to shows, the well is running dry. I've grown tired of using up my phone calls to friends to get them to shows rather than to go have dinner or a drink or a movie. I'm sure they're tired of me calling for that reason too.

I guess the key is going to have to be actually doing show's that are highly marketable and marketting them. I should act like I'm ninety. All my friends and family are dead. How, then, do I get people to come see my show if I'm not already famous? Well, I guess a marketting angle in that case could be, "Watch this ninety year old guy try to stand up for an hour." Or "Watch this ninety year old guy will himself to death onstage!" Of course, you lose the 40-60 demographic there, because they don't want to think about their own mortality.

Oh, I have two auditions coming up. The all important (if you're in the Chicago improv/sketch community) Second City auditions are coming up. I go up on Tuesday the 22nd of feb. So...let's see. 10 people per audition group. Looks like 15 audition groups a day. Three days. Factor in my unfounded optimism and you 've got me versus 500 others in a competition for maybe 3 or 4 spots. Even though the chances are slim, we all audition for it. No one really expects to get in. We just go because we'd feel bad if we didn't. It's a free lottery. Why not enter, right?

Then, later that week, I have an audition for an paid improv gig in Maine. It'd be nice to get paid to do this. I've only ever had to travel once before for a gig and that was for a fake game show about managing your money that I hosted and delivered to college students, in the hopes that they would somehow know less about managing money than I did. I liked the experience of travelling and doing all these college shows but...I missed my wife. I really missed my wife when the freshman girls seemed to be taken by my charm. College girls are sexy. Even the ugly ones. Because you know they're all willing to try whatever. But I'm married. So I pretend that my wife and I are in college. I'm a freshman studying theater and she's a real student who's not interested in me in the least. We play that game all the time.

I'm hoping that this new blog of mine will reacquaint me with my friend Julia Hernandez. She lives across the hall from me but she blogs all day. I think. She does something with computers. We haven't talked in six months. She moved across the hall from me and my wife because we all thought that that would bolster our friendship. I guess it's just tooo convenient to visit now. It's like that book next to my bed. I could read it now but, it'll be there tomorrow too so let's see what's on television.

I look forward to confusing as many as possible.

This is my first post on my first blog.
Hello.
I'm an actor/comic/musician in Chicago and I look forward to posting more. But as of right now, I've got to get the laundry. If I don't get downstairs to the laundry room, somebody's gonna steal something. Oh, and I also see that "The Simpsons" is on right now. Any Simpsons fans? Any Chicago Comedy enthusiasts. (i.e. improv and sketch comedy).
I'll be back.
The bathroom is also calling.