About CJM

C. Jay McGruder’s website produces diverse quality Web based entertainment for participants and viewers alike, while using this Social Media outlet as a networking vehicle to market, promote, and transport Gifted individuals who are starting off in any business or creative arts career by supplying a platform to display services, skills, and talents in an inexpensive, positive, tasteful light!
 
Updated bi-weekly, this website serves as the home of  “Take N Ova Productions” which is headed by blogger, columnist, director, life assistant, and writer C. Jay McGruder.  

 Mr. McGruder’s advice and inspiration to dream appeals to the everyday person. Through different facets of multimedia this website promotes creative arts, healthy living, and objective thinking leading us to his motto, “Rearranging the World!”

EDUCATION: B.A .Communications/Television Columbia College Chicago 2002
DOB: January 15, 1979
RESIDENCE: Houston, Texas
PASSION: Writing, hosting, debating, producing, entertaining, event planning, motivational speaking, and helping others through advice and action.
EXPERIENCE:  Life/Personal Assistant, Entertainment & Event Coordinator, Writer & Producer, Retail/Restruant General Manager, Youth advisor, Blogger, and Playwright.

 
Check out these articles and reviews to learn more about C. Jay below!

Beards are back George Clooney started it. You see them everywhere. In case you haven’t noticed …

By Heidi Stevens | Chicago Tribune reporter

“You look at the fashion guides, you look at different magazines, GQ, and there’s a certain look you should have,” said Jay McGruder, 29. “Women sort of have a vision of what they want you to look like, and if you don’t follow that, you might be lonely.”

McGruder, who lives in Pilsen, says facial hair suits his overall style.

“I like to go out, I like to look nice,” McGruder said. “I have my little dreads, so it all works together. It’s a look.”

Some fashion followers credit George Clooney for bringing beards back this time around. After sporting one in 2005’s “Syriana,” the actor still rocks the look when the mood strikes him (see December’s cover of W). And other celebs are jumping on the razor-free bandwagon.

“Jake Gyllenhall, Ryan Gosling, Tom Brady,” GQ style editor Adam Rapoport rattled off the top of his head. “Justin Timberlake often has them.”

But how does that trickle down to the regular guy?

“There’s something inherently virile and masculine about growing a beard,” Rapoport said. “It kind of evokes a mountain climber, an explorer, a warrior. I’m a man, dammit, and I’m not going to be coiffed, and I’m not putting on moisturizer, and I don’t need toner and exfoliant and all that crap.”

Fidel Marquez certainly didn’t take exfoliant on his Montana fishing trip last August, nor did he have a razor or running water.

He returned to Chicago just in time for a whopper of a storm and, being that he’s ComEd’s vice president for external affairs, found himself working non-stop media duty for five days.

“So after two weeks of no shaving, I just decided to keep it,” Marquez said of his salt-and-pepper beard.

“I saw something around New Year’s indicating one of the trends for ’08 was men growing beards,” he said. “My daughter pointed it out to me and said I was a trendsetter.”

Joshua Herrington, 23, calls his own new beard “a nice shot of testosterone.”

Herrington, who works as a sales associate at the new Marc Jacobs store in Bucktown, said beards mesh with fashion’s larger picture right now.

“The blue-collar, working-class look is very big in the fashion community,” Herrington said. “It’s not a good thing to look like you have things handed to you on a platter. You want to look like you put in a hard day’s work.”

Of course, it takes a certain amount of work to look as though you’ve been hard at work — but not too hard at work.

Will city stage smoking ban?

(http://www.pioneerlocal.com/skylinenews/news/399017,SL-SMOKING-052407-S1.article)

May 24, 2007By FELICIA DECHTER|STAFF WRITER

No if, ands or butts about it: Chicago’s smoking ban could extend to the city’s stages, forcing local actors in shows calling for taking a puff to snuff out their smokes. So where does that leave Jayshawn McGruder, the writer/producer/director of a play called, “Smoke Break,” which is opening in June at the smoke-free Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee Ave.? The savvy McGruder has written the law into his script, and every time a character starts to light up, they are reminded of the ban, and are threatened with being fired if the boss finds out they are firing up. Yet theatergoers, McGruder said, should be able to read about the show, and choose whether or not to attend if there is smoking involved. Cigarettes represent being edgy, McGruder said, and are a necessary prop in “Smoke Break,” even though after the rewrite, the characters just hold them in hand. “I’m against it because it stifles creativity if you are an artist,” said McGruder, whose play is about eight waiters on smoke breaks telling various tales of their day. “The smoking ban just started, but what happened all those years ago? You will ban smoking on shows that have been running for years, that an artist can’t rewrite or that are written by somebody who is dead, and then you give a generic version.” For more than a year now, actors have been defying the city’s smoking ban. Yet before leaving City Hall, former 42nd Ward Alderman Burt Natarus, also an occasional actor, asked his colleagues to pass an exemption for the stage. However, the City Council’s Buildings Committee recently voted not to exempt the actors by a 4 to 2 vote. Alderman Berny Stone, 50th, the committee’s chairman, said he voted against the proposal, but other committee members are demanding, “Absolute enforcement of the ban.” “I think somebody should be allowed to smoke on stage if it’s warranted, why not?” asked Stone, who also has dabbled in acting. “You’re going to ban it, but it’s not going to hurt someone in the audience if it’s called for on stage. I don’t think this is called for in a stage production. I think it’s sort of silly.” Others disagree. Although the ban can be circumvented by using herbal cigarettes, “We support it, absolutely,” said Kelvy Brown, legislative coordinator for the city’s Department of Public Health. Brown said the city’s Clean Indoor Air Act references tobacco, not herbal products, and herbal smokes would not be a violation of the law. “There are no real known adverse effects to herbal (cigarettes),” he said. “They could use them and still look realistic.” Also taking the ban seriously is David Zak, artistic director at the Bailiwick Repertory, in Lake View, where actors have not been allowed to smoke on stage for a couple of years, mostly because it makes the audience and critics uncomfortable and unhappy.

© Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News Group | Terms of Use and Privacy Policy STNG ::Will city stage smoking ban? Page 1 of 1

Theater: Smoke Break

Playwright: Jayshawn McGruder

At: Taken Ova Productions at Gorilla Tango, 1919 N. Milwaukee

Runs through: June 30

BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE       WINDY CITY TIMES

City officials and squeamish audience members can rest easy. None of the actors in Jayshawn McGruder’s play actually smoke in the course of depicting their respective personae. These being waitstaff on break in the alley behind the Breakfast Hut, the legal status of lighting up provides one more grumble for a subculture with plenty to grumble about.

The eight employees at this 24-hour restaurant—allegedly based on a popular Boys’ Town eatery—represent a generic cross-section of the personalities indigenous thereto: flirty Donna ( who might be sleeping with the boss ) , self-proclaimed stud Bruce, gold-digging Maria and fluttery Cory ( don’t call him sissy, or he’ll kick your butt ) . Among the less flamboyant personnel are know-it-all Quita, country-bred Amanda ( so thrilled to be in the Big City ) , earnest Todd ( getting hands-on experience in the food-service industry before assuming leadership in the family business ) and cokehead Kim, who—no surprise—owes her dealer money.

Even for a serial drama promising a different chapter each month, this is a pretty flimsy premise on which to build a storyline. The material focusing on the workplace presents intriguing glimpses of a world rarely seen by outsiders—the annoying customers who don’t read the menu before ordering or refuse to make eye contact with their server, for example, or the competition among minimum-wage earners whose livelihood rests on their skill at manipulating emotional connections sparking consumer generosity. But much of the comedy is standard sketch-improv shtick, its cutesy-vulgar quotient boosted by the inclusion of a ladies’ room toilet on the stage, and by product placement associated with company sponsor Erotic Boutique On Wheels.

But for all its silliness, this Taken Ova production nevertheless deserves its place on the roster at the Gorilla Tango Theatre, the recently-inaugurated storefront space recalling the sorely-missed Café Voltaire. Few other playhouses currently operating in Chicago are as dedicated to presenting a wide variety of entertainment as this rental space, and while its eclectic program has not yet included a Shakespeare or Chekhov, its location on the fringes of Bucktown’s boho district offers ample opportunity for both legitimate plays and cabaret fare. If Smoke Break does nothing more than to promote more humane attitudes toward the hard-working people who feed—and nurture—the hungry, who can dispute its value?

A review

Smoke Break

• Jun 5, 2007 at 9:19 PM

Sunday night, I watched a play called Smoke Break. It was playing at the Gorilla Tango theater on Western and Milwaukee. www.gorillatango.com  Admit it. At least once in your life you’ve worked somewhere so insane you thought a movie or play should be made about it.  Workplace humor has been the driving force behind movies like Clerks and Office Space, and TV shows like BBC’s Have you Been Served?.   Smoke Break, the new play by TakenOva Productions, is the latest, funniest vehicle for workplace humor I have seen in awhile.   The play is about the waitstaff of  “The Breakfast Hut”, a little eatery in Chicago.  During their smoke breaks, one can hear usual workplace fodder we all bitch about on a daily basis.  How much money is or is not being made that day, what bullshit policy is management enforcing now?  and of course, if you watch very closely, you can see the development of those co-worker romances that HR departments warn us about. Heidi Best shines as “Donna”, the sultry older woman of the bunch. Gino, who played “Todd”  the nerdy by the book manager did such a good job with his character I called him a prick after the show.  Gino, I meant “Todd” is a prick, not you.  In fact, I hear you are a nice guy.  I hope I did not hurt your feelings.   From what I gather, Smoke Break is a play that is being done in installments.  During this first installment, we have just met the characters.  Everyone from the annoyingly perky “Amanda” who fell fresh off an Idaho potato truck, to ”Cory” the bitchy queen is someone we’ve all worked with before, especially if we’ve ever waited tables or worked in a call center.   Although they seemed a little stereotypical in the opening, there were glimpses of things to come. I look forward to watching future episodes of Smoke Break and getting to know who each character really is. The entire ensemble worked well together and I loved the energy of the show.