Barton Fink

After graduation, most of my friends moved to L.A., but I went to Chicago. Writing interested me, but so did improv. I landed at The Second City for about a year.

I decided not to live in Chicago — too expensive. Oh, I had everything figured out. I lived in Hammond, Indiana, in a furnished, studio apartment in a converted hotel called the Southmoor.

Hammond is located in northwest Indiana, in a region known as "The Region." If "The Region" is the armpit of Indiana, then Hammond is the hairy, brown mole in that armpit. (Indiana has many armpits, not just one, or even the standard two.)

The Southmoor had all I needed. I had a living room, a small kitchenette, and a bathroom. I slept on a Murphy Bed until I couldn't take any more, and then I switched to the furnished couch, which smelled vaguely of stale smoke and whiskey.

Smoke came up through the drains. Most of the residents were elderly and/or drunks. Ambulances came and went.

I had a neighbor who came over and knocked one afternoon. He was pretty sauced. He said I should come over sometime and play cards. I told him I might do that. I never saw him again.

My commute to Second City was at least an hour, either by train or car. If I drove, parking cost me $12.00 per day. By train, I paid $14 per day round trip. I stopped messing with trains after I figured that out, although I did miss reading.

I figured out a lot of things. At Second City alone, there were roughly 1,500 people — no exaggeration — who had the same idea. We were all going to make it big someday. Jack McBrayer was there at the time. He did pretty well for himself.

Watching Barton Fink again, I couldn't help but draw parallels to my experiences in Chicago. He had a shitty studio apartment. He wanted to write. He had noisy neighbors. He got nothing done.

Of course, I never woke up next to a dead woman, or lived next to a serial killer, or watched as my wallpaper wrinkled and peeled off the walls. Much has been written about Barton's confusion of "fantasy" and "reality" in Barton Fink. I had my own reality.

I only stayed at the Southmoor about three months before I moved into Chicago. Less than a year later, I was back home.

I don't regret the choice of Chicago over L.A.; I'm still trying to pay off the credit card debt, but that year in Chicago was one of the best years of my life, even if I, too, was confusing fantasy for reality.