A Year in Pictures of Comedy

Yet Another Another Year...

2009-03-13T00:34:00.003-05:00

Not much to explain beyond... I've started another 'Year' blog and you can find it

here.

(Some of you may have noticed that a few days ago I accidentally posted an entry to THIS blog here intending to post it to the new blog. It was deleted within minutes but I've had a few people mention it to me since. Anyway, see you at the new place.)

Pssst... the show's over.

2008-12-31T15:45:00.002-06:00

With just a few hours left in this calendar year, I thought I'd take a moment to officially say, "yes, this blog year is done," for those of you who, like a theater audience confused by the fact that the house lights didn't come up or there's no music playing, are confused about whether there's more show left.

Well, this show is done.

But check in from time to time. I don't currently have any specific plans for another 'Year' blog, but I'm sure I'll get around to doing another one eventually. And in the meantime, I have various other projects in the works that I'll be sure to let you know about soon.

For those of you sad to have lost a little part of your daily internet routine, I leave you with a few things listed on the final page of '14,000 Things to Be Happy About' by Barbara Ann Kipfer. "Provolone cheese." "Frothiness." "Exploring your unconscious." And one that I'd like to think is ambiguously spelled (even though it's almost certainly not), "Improving yourself."

2008-11-29T23:14:00.000-06:00

That's our show! Thanks for coming. Don't forget to tip the waitstaff!

2008-11-25T21:56:00.000-06:00

... and lights.

2008-11-24T23:45:00.001-06:00

I don't perform with anyone on Otis anymore (except for Shotts's brief, and now finished, sit-in stint with Diplomat Motel) but we still get together for a few longstanding annual events like Gandy Gras and, tonight, Otis-giving. Not shows, just dinners.

Lauren wasn't able to come because she moved to New York, but since we scheduled the dinner for Monday, one of the few nights the Second City Mainstage is dark, Shelly was able to stop by.

Duffy forgot to thaw out the turkey properly but we still all stuffed ourselves on sides.

It was the first gathering I can remember where no one brought up doing an Otis reunion show or trying to get a couple slots at the Playground (or shooting videos), but we did talk about how nice it would be to get together for some drinks for New Years.

2008-11-23T16:05:00.000-06:00

It was good to see my nephews Ty and Will.

Julie: We told them they were going to see Uncle Arnie. We asked, "Do you know who Uncle Arnie is?" They said, "Uncle Arnie is funny."

2008-11-22T23:01:00.000-06:00

The whole family flew down to Atlanta for Senior Night, Allie's last college volleyball game. Or actually, her last home game. Actually, no, her second to last home game. But anyway, Senior Night.

There was much discussion about whether we should all go on the court for the family picture.

Julie: I drove all the way down here. I think that's enough.
Matt: I'm going out and I'm just the brother-in-law.
Arnie: People will point at you and scream that you don't belong.
Sherry: Isn't it just supposed to be parents?
Arnie: There are an awful lot of us.

Eventually we decided to all go out. I did notice once we were out there, though, that most of the other senior just had their parents with them, and the announcer explained that their grandparents, etc were "watching from the stands."

We had this picture taken which Mom was hoping to use for her Christmas cards, although maybe not since you can barely see Julie and Will is completely hidden behind Allie's head.

2008-11-21T20:33:00.000-06:00

Recently we've been dedicating a little time at work to playing party games. Board games, video games, random games people play. We play games and then ask ourselves, what did we like, what did we not like. What makes a good party game.

Today we hooked Poland's camera up to the big TV so he could be on a team with Steveo for Cranium. One teammate in Chicago, one in Michigan.

Here they are playing the Cranium question type that is essentially Pictionary. Steveo draws and holds the picture up to Poland's camera.

Poland: Hole! Shirt! Shirt hole!
Amanda: The clue is Place. Shirt hole isn't a place.
Allard: Time.
Steveo: It was a laundry mat! See!
Poland: I can barely see anything.
Me: This is really stupid. I'm glad we're doing this.

All in all, I've got a pretty good life.

2008-11-20T12:11:00.000-06:00

One of my original ideas for this blog was for it to be loosely structured like a long form improv show. Heading off in all directions to start and then coming together with connections and call backs at the end.

My feeling about the blog over the last few months is that it never really went anywhere, and there were some good bits but it's mostly just kind of there.

Chin: And this is different from a lot of improv shows how?
Me: So I've succeeded in making my blog a bad improv show?
Chin: Write that.

Bad is maybe too strong a word. I've done some bad improv shows, bracingly bad, but, and maybe I'm deluding myself here, those are a rarity. Of course, the truly transcendent ones don't happen often either. Most fall under the category of Unrealized Potential. Good, but not as good as they could have been.

Still, people were entertained and fun was had. The last thing you should ever do is bail on a show before it's over because it's not as good as you want it to be. Sure, you could, as I'm doing now, break the fourth wall and comment on the show, be honest about how you think it's not so great and see if that honesty can take you somewhere interesting. But maybe the audience doesn't think it's a bad show, and it's probably best to keep moving forward, projecting confidence (being an expert) until the lights go out.

2008-11-19T09:32:00.000-06:00

As I've mentioned before, when SNL is hiring, one of their (many) usual places to look is iO. SNL talent scouts come and see a showcase here once or twice a year. I've done some, I've not done some.

There was an all-women showcase a few weeks back and from that showcase, eight very talented Chicago improvisers were flown out to New York to do the infamous SNL audition where you stand on the show's stage and do five minutes of material while no one laughs. Among the women invited were Shelly (from Otis) and Steve and Jordan's girlfriends (who both obviously have identities above and beyond being girlfriends, but I haven't mentioned them on the blog before so I'm referring to them as that for simplicity's sake).

Steve: [from a conversation that week] It's funny. On Wednesday my girlfriend is going to be performing for Lorne Michaels and I'm going to be... what... interviewing a glee club.
Me: Yes. But you'll be interviewing a glee club on your national cable sports show.
Steve: Well, sure.

(It's worth mentioning that Steve had his own SNL callback a few years ago.)

Unfortunately, none of the Chicago women were hired.

Anyway, that's a long intro into mentioning that Charna recently said to me in passing, "The next time there's an SNL showcase here, you're at the top of the list." Very flattering, very nice. I don't really do characters or impressions, but still, it's nice to be on that list, even if it would be slightly wasted on me.

There was an SNL showcase last night which I wasn't in.

Charna: [via e-mail] There was only one slot left and I decided to go with Alex, but you're on the top of the list for the next one.

This didn't particularly bother me. I don't consider myself unworthy (or above it) but SNL performer isn't really in my skill set. Still, they're looking for writers so I submitted a writing packet through Charna.

I brought the packet to the showcase concealed in my bag. I felt slightly embarrassed about it, like a taxi driver with a screenplay tucked under his seat in case a celebrity steps in his cab.

I ran into Megan outside the theater.

Megan: Time to watch Alex do the showcase and pretend I'd actually want my boyfriend to move to New York.

Charna was very nice and made a point of tracking me down during the intermission to get my writing packet. My cover letter read, "Hello. Tonight at the iO theater in Chicago, there was a talent showcase for Saturday Night Live. The probably wise decision was made to keep the amount of performers down to a reasonable number. Sadly, this meant that there was not room for me to participate. Charna has assured me that I was 'the very next person' so, if you happen to hire everyone you see perform tonight and then find that you have one more writer position to fill, keep in mind that I am the next person and would probably be a logical candidate for that job (unless, of course, Charna was just being in nice by saying that I'm the next person, which is certainly possible)."

Too cute? Probably. And the sketches in the packet weren't particularly SNL-centric (except for one topical Obama sketch from the Whirled News sketch show), but like my lackluster Second City audition earlier this year, I'm trying to make a point of going after things. Putting myself out there, at least. The next step is probably putting myself out there in a way that is more than least.

2008-11-18T14:13:00.000-06:00

Back in Chicago.

This cement drawing (of what might be a bone but is probably a penis) was literally the first thing we saw after stepping out of a taxi cab in front of my apartment. We stepped right on it.

2008-11-17T16:09:00.000-06:00

Good vacation.

2008-11-16T18:50:00.002-06:00

Every day at the pool (at both resorts) activity directors try to talk guests into playing Crazy Games (that's how they're listed on the schedule). I always pass. "No thanks. I'd rather just read or swim or drink."

Today, though, they were playing that game where you throw golf balls connected with rope at a little PVC pipe ladder (I only know it by joke names like Dangle Balls and Sling Sacs). I like that game. So I volunteered to play along with a young man and woman from Mexico City and two old women from Canada.

At first I worried I'd play "too well" and would have to start throwing the game if I got too far ahead (each night before the Entertainment Show, the winners of the Crazy Games are called up on stage to wave their certificates of achievement back and forth over their heads while the DJ plays 'We Are the Champions'). I didn't need to worry about winning, though, because I did genuinely badly for most of the game. I had a bit of a rally near the end but still came in second to the deeply tanned Canadian woman who always giggled and rasped, "blue balls" when handed the blue colored balls.

After about five or six rounds, the entertainment director made the game more Crazy by adding new rules like "throw with your eyes closed" or "throw under your leg." I was fine with these new rules. Why not? But I felt bad that I didn't find them as hilarious as the other people playing the game. Why is closing your eyes while throwing not funny to me? How was I the humorless one?

The final round involved spinning around three times before throwing. The catch was, though, that the entertainment director would pretend to get distracted while counting the number of spins. So... you could either keep spinning and spinning or spin three times and throw only to be playfully scolded for not going to three. A lose lose situation (or just good dumb fun, pretending on how you look at it). By the time it got to me I had watched four people contend with this. I decided to go with endless spinning, thinking, "I am trapped in someone else's joke."

2008-11-15T11:26:00.000-06:00

We've been loving our resort, but yesterday they offered us a free upgrade to an even nicer resort down the beach and we've decided to take it.

So this is our vacation getaway from our vacation getaway.

2008-11-14T16:47:00.001-06:00

Many of the people who work at the resort seem to have a playful, teasing sense of humor.

Sarah: Could I have a Mai Tai?
Bartender: Mai Tai? [points to tie] I only have one.

Or...

Sarah: [pointing to colorful drink woman at bar has just ordered] What's that?
Bartender: A woman.

Maybe these aren't the height of hilarity, but when the people involved don't share a first language, they're pretty good (or, it may be significant that these all took place while drinking).

The point is, though, that everyone seems nice and funny.

Here is Aldo, our favorite, who works at the front desk.

Sarah: Is there a gym here?
Aldo: You don't need the gym.
Me: But I do.
Aldo: She doesn't. You... maybe.

2008-11-13T17:15:00.000-06:00

The ruins of Tulum.

It was really beautiful and I'd love to say that Sarah and I learned a lot about ancient Mayan culture, but honestly, we mostly took wacky pictures of ourselves, many of them involving Sarah punching nature.

2008-11-12T16:09:00.000-06:00

The resort we're staying at has live entertainment every night. Tonight was the Michael Jackson show. Basically, an impersonator lip synced Michael Jackson songs for about an hour.

The MC introduced the show as, "the best show we have all week," although frankly I have higher hopes for tomorrow night's 'Around the World' (advertised with the slogan, "Enjoy Our Entertainment Show!").

Growing quickly bored with watching a man walk-dance back and forth on stage while lip syncing, Sarah and I ended up talking to a very nice old Belgian couple that was sitting behind us.

Belgian Man: We like Barack Obama.
Belgian Woman: Yes, but everyone in Europe worries that he will be assassinated.

We talked pleasantly about politics and the world and hoped it wasn't painfully obvious that although they knew a lot about America, we know next to nothing about Belgium.

Eventually we got back around to talking about Michael Jackson. The Belgian man said, "Michael Jackson... he is a bit problematic you know... he is..." He trailed off and we all nodded and raised our eyebrows in agreement.

"But he's got a couple great songs," I said.

2008-11-11T20:59:00.000-06:00

Vacationing in Mexico.

Some things you will hear a lot of on your first day in Playa del Carmen:

1. "Are you on your honeymoon?"

We heard this one about three times before we even left the airport (each time from someone we thought worked for the airport or the shuttle service, although they always turned out to be someone trying to sell us something).

Official-Seeming Person: Are you two on your honeymoon?
Sarah: Oh ho, no.
Me: No. Just on vacation.
Official-Seeming Person: Just practicing?
Me: I guess so.
Official-Seeming Person: We offer many scuba-diving packages.

2. "Are you Canadian?"

Everyone seemed to think we were Canadian. Supposedly there is a lot of Canadian tourism in Mexico. More than Americans, though?

I half-suspect they were politely offering us an out. "Where are you from? Canada? It's alright to just say you're Canadians and make everything less awkward."

3. "Visit our famous 5th Avenue. Lots of shopping. It is not the New York City 5th Avenue. It's our 5th Avenue."

It's not so much that we heard this several times, it's that the wording was always exactly the same, as if it had been widely agreed that this was the perfect joke (and informative too!) when talking to honeymooning Canadians about 5th Avenue.

2008-11-10T12:00:00.001-06:00

By the way, this is what Young and I look like on cable sports television.

The Big Ten Network post videos of the pretaped on-campus segments on their website, but not the live bumpers, so, sadly, this picture is all you're going to get.

Mom: [via text] dad & i just watched it. we thought u were pretty funny

2008-11-09T22:13:00.000-06:00

After an unusually warm fall it's now become winter cold.

Theater-going is seasonal. As soon as the cold hits, more people come to see shows. Whirled News was as packed as it's been in a long time. Extra chairs up front. Extra chairs on the sides. Tonight's Diplomat Motel show was packed too.

Also, selfishly, I'm glad it's finally gotten cold just in time for Sarah and I to leave for our vacation to Mexico this week.

2008-11-08T22:02:00.000-06:00

The booking company that gets Whirled News paying road shows (like the ones in Texas and Louisiana) requested new photos of us, so they could do better promotion. Basically, funny pictures.

So we had a staged photo shoot before our show tonight. Angela Manginelli took pictures while Charna gave us direction like, "You two, pick her up. You, look angry."

[As always, you should check out Angela's photos here, and her various official iO photos here.]

2008-11-07T23:34:00.000-06:00

Jordan and Steve's show 'Friday Night Tailgate' was shooting at Northwestern this week, and they asked Young and I to come up and do a bit during one of their live segments.

At the end of the show, when the in-studio host, Mike Hall (also an improviser at iO), talks to the on-location Jordan and Steve he finds that they have been replaced by myself and Young wearing fake mustaches and Jordan and Steve's hoodies. It's kind of hard to explain. Basically, we're fatter versions of those guys.

Afterwards, we all decided to go get some drinks and walked out of the tent where the show was shot and onto a dark and empty baseball field.

Jordan: This is the part where we're mobbed by fans.

2008-11-06T23:20:00.001-06:00

The sketch show is officially done. Pack up the props and take them home.

Since the election is already over, we decided to cut some scenes and alter some of the others to make them kiiiinnnndd of make sense now that all the campaigning is done. On top of that, one of our cast members couldn't make it because they assumed we wouldn't still be doing the show the Thursday after the election too (which, to be fair, is a reasonable assumption). So everything was very much up in the air.

But then it didn't really matter because only two people showed up, so we sent them to the downstairs show and had a few drinks and toasted to the election and the show being done.

Me: Now I know how McCain must feel right now. Secretly relieved.

So, 'Yes We Can't' was a noble failure at best. Still, it was mostly fun and there were some good bits in there.

For instance, here's my favorite scene in the show. You can click on 'Watch in High Quality' right under the video to watch it in, well, better picture quality (this is probably common knowledge but I just figured it out myself today).

And here's an audience participation piece I did in the show. We got eight volunteers and handed them paddles with wires running backstage (to nothing) and tried to at least halfway convince them we were doing actual real-time opinion polling. This video is just the audio from that over the powerpoint presentation that we used to fake the results.

2008-11-05T13:08:00.000-06:00

Charna stopped by the Electapalooza party last night for an hour or so. She was kind enough to buy 15 pizzas for the audience.

Here she is checking her Blackberry.

Charna: I just got a text from Amy Poehler. She wants to know if things are crazy here.

2008-11-04T23:53:00.000-06:00

Election Day.

I went to my local polling station this morning, my pockets stuffed with my voter card, drivers license, passport and utility bill (just in case), prepared for a crazy election day ordeal. More than prepared... almost craving it ("In '08 I stood in line for three hours, but I stayed and I cast my vote!"). In reality, the whole process only took about 15 minutes.

This evening Whirled News hosted iO's Electapalooza Party/Show. We had election coverage playing on the giant screen in the theater and did some hastily thrown together comedy bits during the commercial breaks.

Here, Steve talks about how both candidates are unlikely to win since a senator hasn't won the presidency since the '60s. And Young talks about how the electoral votes of the underwater kingdom are being ignored (this was really just an excuse for him to dress like Aquaman).

Other bits included pretending my iPhone was CNN's silly demographic break-down touchscreen wall ("Among convicted felons, 0% voted for McCain and 0% voted for Obama...") and Alex admitting that his vote for Commissioner of Water Reclamation went to David Clearwater, purely because of his name ("I mean... come on... Clearwater!").

Once Obama was announced the winner, though, we pretty much stopped doing bits. We couldn't (nor would we want to try to) compete with what was playing on the giant TV screen. Everyone watched and cheered and laughed and got generally choked up.

Then, after the speech we had a dance party.

Shane: A good night. When we did this four years ago, the night did not end with dancing.

2008-11-03T22:16:00.000-06:00

Speaking of kids, here's one more picture from the Halloween party at work.

Shane's family and Tom's family.

2008-11-02T23:12:00.000-06:00

Eddie brought his daughter to the theater before the Whirled News show last night. They walked around backstage pretending to get ready for a show.

Eddie: Fly check!

Then they entered through one of the doors, Eddie making a distant-crowd-cheering noise. Holding hands, they half-ran across the front of the stage.

Eddie: Sweep edit!

2008-11-01T15:02:00.000-05:00

Halloween got strange in the wee hours

After the iO party ended, a number of us went to an after-hours bar, which promptly lost Young's credit card by accidentally giving it to some other patron with the same first name. As the bar closed, the bartender explained, "There's nothing we can do. You should go cancel the card. Happy Halloween."

Young was understandably pissed. As I watched him storm off into the night, I felt sorry for him, but also had to admit it was kind of funny to watch him charge angrily down the street dressed as a medieval knight.

Next, several of us went to a diner for some 4am breakfast food. There was only one overworked and frazzled waitress, so it was a long wait. The young man who refilled our water explained that he'd come in to order some food and the waitress had asked him to help out. "That was three hours ago. I'm in it for the experience of it."

About an hour later there was some commotion from the other side of the restaurant. A deaf man was arguing with the waitress, waving a piece of paper around. Then he started going from table to table, showing the paper and mouthing, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The paper read, "We are deaf. We have been here for over 20 minutes and no one has taken our order. People have come in after us and gotten service. What have we done wrong?"

The waitress stormed over. "Stop bothering my customers! Leave them alone!" The deaf man continued on to more tables with his paper. The waitress yelled, "No one cares! No one cares! Raise your hand if you care!"

As this went on and on, my thoughts on the situation changed from, "Oh dear, whatever's happened, the deaf man is clearly in the right," to, "Oh, I think that deaf man is really drunk."

The deaf man was eventually escorted out by his more sober seeming deaf friends.

A few minutes later, the volunteer bus boy headed for the door. "Well, I'm out of here. Did you see those guys that just left? They stole my coat." He didn't seem that upset, just shrugged and headed outside towards his next experience.

2008-10-31T23:53:00.000-05:00

Halloween.

I had a lot of fun at the iO Halloween Party. Surrounded by creative costumes (Photo Booth, High School Musical cheerleader, Sexy Ira Glass, etc), I really regretted not dressing up. Halloween snuck up on me this year. Granted, I haven't dressed up in years, but this year I was so busy I didn't even have time to consciously decide not to get a costume.

Next year.

2008-10-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

Self-promoting e-mails and facebook messages may be annoying, but I guess they work because we had a great crowd for the sketch show tonight. Finally.

Here are some friends hanging out in the theater afterward.

2008-10-29T19:08:00.000-05:00

Halloween party at work. Each year there are more babies and children in adorable costumes for the parents to bring in.

Allard was the only adult to dress up, because he owns his own gorilla costume.

Allard: Gorilla costumes are a great investment. You'll be surprised by how many opportunities there are to wear it. You can't go wrong buying a gorilla suit.

Predictably, the costume terrified several of the small children. Some of them continued screaming even after he took the mask off to prove he was a human person underneath. "Don't put it back on!!!" they screamed. "DON'T PUT THE HEAD BACK ON!!!!!"

2008-10-28T17:18:00.000-05:00

I generally avoid self-promotion (besides, I guess, having a blog about myself). This isn't necessarily a good thing. When you put up a sketch show and have painfully small crowds... well, it's you're own fault.

So, I decided to send out my first ever Facebook Event Invite for this week's sketch show. Just one. Didn't want to be annoying.

Unfortunatly, some kind of Facebook glitch has resulted in the people I invited getting multiple e-mail alerts about this invitation. E-mail after e-mail. "Arnie has invited you to an event." "Arnie has invited you to an event."

So, I'm that annoying guy now.

Marla: [via e-mail] I'm super-invited!

Laura: [via e-mail] I was just about to write and say I only had one when I got another notification. Still just one actual invite, but multiple e-mail notices. And I thought it was cool that when I added invites, facebook told me which people it would not send an invitation to because they had already been invited. Apparently the right idea, the wrong execution.

2008-10-27T21:11:00.000-05:00

Diplomat rehearsal. Timmy, with his eyes closed, tries to negotiate his way through a human obstacle course.

I am the most dreaded part of the obstacle course, the part with a camera.

2008-10-26T16:13:00.000-05:00

Last night, after the Diplomat Motel show, Meador let us all know that because of the increasing demands of nursing school, he was going to have to step away from the team for a couple months. A hiatus. So, another close friend has left Diplomat Motel (for now, anyway).

Laura: If you need to focus on being better at saving lives, then do it. And since we're letting you go, it's like we're saving lives.
Me: That was easy.
Laura: We saved someone's life tonight!

2008-10-25T22:34:00.001-05:00

For the first time in a while, we had the full cast present for Whirled News. Fun show.

Brady, watching from the light booth, sometimes makes a list of scenes we improvise during the first act. Here's what we did tonight. Feel free to imagine the show.

2008-10-24T20:29:00.000-05:00

Old cups, bottles and cans tend to collect on my desk, especially now that I'm upstairs and all that much further from the kitchen and recycling bins.

Steveo pointed out that this combination, sitting in the middle of my desk, is funny. He picked them up and showed them to the camera on top of Poland's TV.

Poland: I hope you're not drinking those together.
Me: You're supposed to drink Blue Moon with an orange wedge, right?

2008-10-23T22:34:00.001-05:00

Back in Chicago doing the sketch show.

Here's a scene Alex and Glynn do about Abraham Lincoln.

One of the things Whirled News does best (or at least most) is "mapping" scenes. As I've mentioned before, mapping scenes are really just using the language of one thing to talk about another thing.

Over the five year history of Whirled News, the things we've mapped the most are probably relationships, sex, the Iraq war, and the ways various elections are run ('04 and '08). In that order.

So, in the improvised show, say we pull an article about cable operators off the back board (that's just the first thing that came to mind, I'm not trying to set myself up with a particularly ripe example). If the cable technician is shy and insists on three or four visits before installing cable, you're probably going to end up doing a sex mapping scene. If the technician declares "mission accomplished" after only getting one channel to work, it's going to be an Iraq war mapping scene. It's just that easy! And if you can work in the word "pull-out" it can work for both. These are obvious examples, and seem kind of corny here in print, but screw it, I love those kinds of scenes.

Without looking at the running order, I would say the Whirled News sketch show (as an outgrowth of the improv show) is about 50% mapping scenes. The opener is a sort of Iraq war/sex/election/children's birthday party mash-up. And this Lincoln scene has some clever jabs at the current election.

Glynn: (as campaign manager) Your opponent is going negative, and it is having an impact. First of all, there's your name.
Alex: (as Lincoln) What's wrong with my name?
Glynn: Well, your first name, Abraham... it's sort of Jewish.
Alex: What? But I'm not Jewish.
Glynn: I know sir, but it confuses some of the dumber Americans. And Douglas is using that. They're even claiming you were educated in a synagogue.
Alex: Ouch. What else?
Glynn: I hate to say it, sir, but it seems that Douglas is playing the race card. He doesn't say it outright, but he's basically calling you not a racist.
Alex: What? That son of a bitch! I'm totally a racist!
Glynn: They're very subtle about it sir, and it hurts us in the South.

Anyway, that's a little taste of the sketch show. Two more weeks to check it out.

[As if this post isn't already long enough, here's a taste from backstage.

Alex: When I say, "I think the beard makes me look like a terrorist," should I say I think it makes me look like "a fucking terrorist." Because... you know... profanity is funny.
Glynn: It might take away from when you say, "fuck it" at the end of the scene.
Alex: That's true.
Me: You gotta choose your "fucks."
Alex: You gotta choose your "fucks."]

2008-10-22T22:30:00.000-05:00

Canceled flights. Missed connections. A long day getting back to Chicago.

On my first flight I sat next to a nice, but talkative elderly woman from Seattle. When she found out I was from Chicago she told me the following story.

"When I was in college, in Oklahoma, we had three boys in one of my classes from Chicago. On the first day we all went around introducing ourselves and one boy said, 'I'm from a small town just north of Chicago.' I don't remember the name. Then the next boy stood up and said, 'I'm actually from a small town just north of that small town north of Chicago.' Then the next boy got up and said, 'You know, I'M from a town just north of those other two towns north of Chicago.' I'll never forget it. All three of them were from Chicago."

She was very sweet, and I politely said something like, "Oh," or "You don't say." But I was tired and cramped into an airplane seat and secretly thinking, "At your age, after all those years, THAT'S your Chicago story?"

2008-10-21T17:02:00.000-05:00

Speaking of staying up late, after the show some college students bought us a round of shots and talked us into going to a giant (but empty) after-hours bar for karaoke.

2008-10-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

Great show tonight. Big crowd, big laughs. The audience was mostly, "white caps" (as someone working at the theater called them) but we could also hear college students laughing up in the balcony.

The only real criticism I would have of the show is that the second act went on way too long. The second act should always be shorter than the first. Leave them wanting more. There must have been some miscommunication somewhere along the line, though, because the lights just wouldn't come down to end the second act. So we just kept on doing more article and more scenes. The last thing we'd want to do is fall short of our contractually obligated show length.

It's hard to have an accurate sense of time onstage. And we couldn't confer with each other on the sidelines because of our ear mics (anything we'd whisper to each other would boom out into the theater). But we were all thinking, "Shouldn't this show be done by now?" We were still getting a great response from the audience but you could feel the diminishing returns.

Finally, on a big laugh, I bit the bullet and jumped forward, proclaiming, "That's our show! Goodnight!"

Our second act should probably be 30 minutes, tops. We later found out we'd gone over an hour.

Sorry we kept you out so late Louisiana.

2008-10-19T23:51:00.001-05:00

Louisiana.

No show tonight. We figured we'd explore the little town we were staying in, and, since we had nothing to do until our 4pm sound check tomorrow, do some serious drinking.

Me: Is there anything fun to do in town?
Hotel Clerk: Fun? Here? Uh... we have a movie theater.

We drove around for over an hour trying to find a place to eat that wasn't a Chili's or an Applebee's. Finally we found a tiny local Mexican place that was still open.

Waiter: To drink?
Eddie: I'll have a Tecate.
Waiter: No alcohol on Sunday.
Eddie: What?
Waiter: Sorry. No alcohol sales on Sunday.
Eddie: Seriously?
Waiter: Welcome to Louisiana.

We tried to keep a positive attitude for the rest of the night, but were ultimately unable to make our own fun. Here we are in the parking lot of the Sleep Inn, before we trudged inside to watch TV together.

2008-10-18T23:13:00.000-05:00

Texas.

Young, Eddie, Alex, Marla, Padraic and I start our brief tour through the south, doing Whirled News shows. Our first (and second) was in this beautiful old courthouse, recently turned into a theater.

Me: I don't think we've ever performed in a space with this much character before.
Theater Manager: [equally proud and exasperated] No one has. No one has performed in a place like this.

We were repeatedly reminded that this wouldn't be the kind of crowd we were used to in Chicago. Older, more conservative, religious. We passed dozens of 'McCain/Palin' signs on our way to the theater. Every yard. Which is fine... we don't have any particular agenda beyond being funny, but the question arises, "What will they accept us making fun of, and what won't they accept?"

As is usually best for these kinds of shows, we decided to play it pretty safe, taking only the gentlest of satirical jabs (at any topic) and mostly doing silly or slice-of-life scenes. To show just how safe we were playing it, Alex actually referred to someone as a "doody-head" in one of the early scenes.

As the show went on, though, the audience proved itself to be not as uptight as we'd worried, and we pushed the line more and more (although never all that far, frankly) to bigger and bigger laughs, making fun of Democrats, Republicans, religion, the president, the local paper, the theater, ourselves and ending on a joke about pubic hair that killed (the joke, not the pubic hair).

A great start to our little tour.

2008-10-17T23:37:00.001-05:00

Went to watch Sarah do a late night show at the ATC. I ran into Joe Bill and we chatted.

He's one of the founding members of the Annoyance Theater and easily one of the best teachers I've ever had (in improv or anything really). A big part of his income comes from traveling to festivals or running corporate training workshops using improv.

We talked about the scary and dramatic decline of the economy.

Joe Bill: This could hit me hard. In an economic situation where travel, training and entertainment are the first things cut, it sucks to be someone who travels to entertain and train. Oh well, I guess I'll just be charging less than I'm truly worth for a little while.

2008-10-16T23:14:00.000-05:00

At the last minute, Laura had to travel out of state for a court case for, you know, her real job, being a lawyer.

Marla wasn't able to be in the whole run of the Whirled News sketch show, but she is sitting in for Laura for two weeks. She's a real trooper, jumping in to memorize the lines and not getting any real rehearsal time.

Here she is running over her lines one last time backstage before the show. This scene is about President Bush giving an exit interview to an HR person on his last day in the White House.

Marla: What would you consider your biggest accomplishment while here?
Glynn: By "biggest" are we talking best? Like... successful?
Marla: Exactly.
Glynn: By "successful" you mean, like, positive?
Marla: Usually, yes.
Glynn: Oh, when I-- ... nope. Nevermind.
Marla: Should we pass on that one for now?
Glynn: Yeah, Sharon, let's pass.
Marla: On the flipside, do you have any regrets about--
Glynn: Nope. Next.

2008-10-15T12:31:00.000-05:00

I went to a party over the weekend and ran into Jordan, back in town briefly between shooting episodes of 'Friday Night Tailgate.'

He was one of the improvisers who went to Geneva with Charna a few months back to teach improv to the physicists who built the giant proton collider.

Jordan: It was neat to see them taking these simple rules we use, like "yes, and" and applying it with a critical mind to what they do. "Wait, you mean we can agree with each other and build on each other's ideas instead of just coming up with competing ideas?"

Most of the people he taught workshops for during the trip were actually American scientists.

Jordan: There was one member of one of our groups, it very quickly became clear, was from Geneva and not affiliated with CERN. He also had somewhat of a chip on his shoulder, initiating three line scenes with lines like, "Well, look at all these elitist physicists." Awkwardly inserting over-the-top passive aggressiveness into the scenes.

Obviously, this kind of attitude isn't very conducive to good improv (or learning), but I will say, in a space of mutual respect and emptied of agenda, "Well, look at all these elitist physicists" could be a pretty great scene initiation.

2008-10-14T23:05:00.000-05:00

Half the cast of Whirled News is doing a series of shows in Texas and Louisiana this weekend. We've done a few promotional interviews.

Here's an interview Marla and I did.

Alex did an interview that I think is pretty interesting. The questions are very simple on the surface, but kind of intimidating. For instance, one of them is, "What is comedy?" As someone who's been toying with this question all year on this blog (with varying success), I feel like if I had been in Alex's place, the interview questions might have tipped me into an existential crisis.

Other questions included, "Is everything funny," "what do you think is most absurd about the human condition," and simply, "What about the audience?"

These questions make me feel a little dizzy, but Alex did a fine job with them. I've performed with Alex for years and I know that his central philosophy on performing is "be an expert." Even if he has no clue what he's talking about, especially if he doesn't know what he's talking about, he decides to be an expert and it always serves him well.

You can read all his answers here.

So, yeah, you can read him say smart things like, "Satire opens eyes in a less combative way," over there, but I'm going to share my favorite part of the interview here, which appears at the end.

Question: Maybe at its heart comedy is a celebration of human foibles in spite of our attempts to pretend we’re in control, in spite of our supposed cocksureness?
Alex: Yeah. I think that’s fair.

2008-10-13T22:14:00.000-05:00

Diplomat Motel rehearsal at Gill Park.

I think I've written before about how the walls are usually filled with posters and schedules for children's classes. "Respect!" "Team Work!"

Sometimes a good improv rehearsal can mirror the simplicity of a grade school class. We went around a circle telling each other one thing we liked about the way they other person performed. Then we did basic three line scenes, focusing on just making sure both characters had names and giving at least one of the characters an activity to perform.

"Hey Bob."
"Hey Cindy."
"I see you're unwrapping that present I got you."

Straightforward but effective. Little skills that get easily lost.

2008-10-12T16:45:00.000-05:00

Struggling actors/improvisors end up taking all kinds of odd jobs. For instance Carrie and Niki, from my old improv group James Jackson, were both in the coin operated light gun video game, 'Target Terror.' An arcade game where you shoot terrorists.

Carrie plays the news reporter at the opening of each level, and Niki plays several live-action characters throughout the game, like, Sexy Female Asian Terrorist and Innocent Bystander With Pigtails That Seems To Be Wandering Around Oil Tanker For No Apparent Reason.

Once, on a lark, Young and I played through almost the entire game at an arcade, wasting more and more quarters so we could keep shooting our friends. According to Young we spent about $40, which seems crazy to me now, but he's probably right.

I recently found out that the game is now out on the Wii. In fact, it's been out for months. The reviews were terrible (the reason I found out about the Wii release at all, was that it was included on a list I stumbled across on-line of awful broken games). So, of course, I bought it. Used.

Kid Working At Video Game Store: We have a USED copy of this? I can't believe anyone bought this game.

I e-mailed Carrie (who's back in Chicago after a summer internship working for 'Ugly Betty' and 'Pushing Daisies') and Niki (who has retired from Second City's ETC stage, and I believe is moving out west soon) to find out if they knew about this development.

Carrie: I'm so glad I haven't seen it. I think I'm the most terrifying part of the whole thing.

Niki never e-mailed me back. I'll have to vent my frustrations over being ignored by shooting her characters.

2008-10-11T23:10:00.000-05:00

The usual Whirled News postshow dinner and drinks at Salt and Pepper.

We talked a bit about the special Election Night Show we're going to do on... well... election night. A place for people to come and drink while they watch election coverage, with us doing bits (some preplanned, some spur of the moment) during the commercials. They did it four years ago (I was in Arizona at the time and missed it).

Shane: It was a lot of fun. People played Halo. Marla and Padraic had a debate about why people from their home state, Florida, keep messing up elections. Of course, things got progressively sadder as the night went on.
Marla: Oh yeah. Some of the audience was crying.

Steve talked about a show he'd done recently with another group he performs with at iO, Bullet Lounge.

Steve: We asked for a suggestion from the audience and someone yelled out, "Sarah Palin." So the opening turns into us saying, "You know, we should pick an inexperienced woman out of the audience and have her do the show with us. Be our Sarah Palin." And we picked some girl out of the audience, it turns out she's a level three student, I think. And we made her be in every scene. Halfway through the show I started thinking to myself, "Wait, by the very premise we've set up for this show... did we want or expect this audience member to do badly?" But she was great. She did a really great job. So, take that however you want.

2008-10-10T23:56:00.000-05:00

I've written before about iO (and the entire Chicago improv scene) being a transitional place. Lots of turnover. Most of the performers I looked up to when I was starting out are gone, and the majority of my own improv generation has either moved to one of the coasts or found that they ultimately didn't have enough time for performing.

Shotts, though, claims he's sticking around. Forever.

Shotts: I remember sitting here, at this bar, early on, and thinking, "This is it. I'm a lifer."

This photo was supposed to recreate that "I've found my home" moment, but somehow came out looking less positive.

Shotts: [laughing] Oh god!
Me: It came out less, "yes, this is the life" and more "oh no.. my life!"
Shotts: Eh. Keep it. Use it.

2008-10-09T23:11:00.000-05:00

The second week of the sketch show. We had around twenty audience members, which is... what... about a 1,000% increase from last week? At this rate, we'll have to move to a stadium soon.

2008-10-08T11:32:00.000-05:00

Today, Whirled News did a special improv show at the high school where Nick teaches Drama and Improv. As usual for these kinds of things, we wanted to be extra careful about language and content.

Nick: [via e-mail] My principal pulled me aside today to let me know that a few kids in the school who are outed Republicans/Conservatives/etc have been getting blasted by other kids lately and really made to feel like shit. Anyway, he asked if I could tell you guys to try to aim jokes at both sides during your show.

In the school auditorium, in front of 400 students and about 30 teachers, we did a totally clean show (the only possible eyebrow raiser was Megan doing a scene about a woman trying to get other people to take her cervical cancer exam for her, but it was more tastefully done than you might guess). Political balance ended up not being a concern because none of the articles the students cut out were about the election.

Doing these kinds of shows can sometimes be a drag, more work than fun, but today's was a real pleasure. They were a great audience and we gave them a tight, funny show. One of the articles we used was from the school paper, inspiring us to do a series of scenes about the school itself, which, of course, killed. Everyone seemed happy.

Although, at one point, I looked out into the audience and glimpsed a teacher standing off to the side repeatedly shaking her head back and forth, as if thinking to herself, "No. No. No. This isn't right. No." For a moment I worried that we'd somehow slipped up and offended the teaching staff, but I later found out that she has some kind of nerve disorder.

2008-10-07T17:58:00.000-05:00

Pranks.

Steveo has a notoriously cluttered desktop. Icons covering every free space on his two monitors. On April 1st, Allard took a screen shot of Steveo's desktop, made it the wallpaper on Steveo's computer and moved some of the actual icons around. Then we waited to see how long it would take for Steveo to notice.

It took about half a year.

Steveo: I figured I'd finally auto-arrange my desktop, but some of the folders didn't move and I couldn't get them to do anything even if I clicked on them. I couldn't figure it out until Allard told me what he'd done.

Here's Steveo with his new, "cleaned-up" desktop.

2008-10-06T22:45:00.001-05:00

After a few months without an official coach, Diplomat Motel is jumping back on the rehearsing-every-week wagon. Here's our new coach, Todd.

There was some scheduling confusion and Gill Park placed us in a tiny room with the radio play-by-play of the season ending White Sox game coming out of a small speaker in the ceiling. Not very conducive to rehearsing. So, instead we had a discussion about the direction of the team. A where-are-you-going,-where-have-you-been sort of thing.

Todd asked questions like, "Does the name Diplomat Motel have any special significance to the way you play as a team?" and "What one thing does Diplomat Motel do better than any other team at iO?" We gave answers like, "That's a good question," "I don't know," and "I'm not certain why but it seems important that the name is Motel and not Hotel."

2008-10-05T15:47:00.000-05:00

My key to the laundry room has gone missing. The landlord can be tough to get a hold of sometimes, so I asked the owner of the dry cleaners downstairs if I could borrow his key. It's odd to ask the owner of a dry cleaning establishment to help you get into a free laundry room, but he's a good guy and lent me the key without hesitation.

I asked him about his bird, which I hadn't seen around in some time.

Me: How's Kevin? Your bird.
Dry Cleaning Guy: Oh, I don't have him anymore.
Me: Did he... die?
Dry Cleaning Guy: No. I just don't have him. He flew away. A long time ago.
Me: Again?
Dry Cleaning Guy: Yeah.

2008-10-04T23:18:00.000-05:00

Trupe's 30th birthday party. Here he is with Wonak and their daughter Vivian (with a special appearance by Nick's daughter, Jane).

We had some drinks at O'Donovan's. The Halloween decorations were up and I pretended to get stuck in the giant spider webs. Not even the little kids laughed at that one.

Later, some of us watched the painful last game of the Cubs season at my apartment.

Trupe: Ugh. The second the game is officially over, you need to change the channel. The second.
Nick: [holding remote control at the ready] I will. The second the last out is called, I'll change it.
Trupe: I don't want to see any of their celebrating. Change it!

2008-10-03T10:44:00.001-05:00

'Yes We Can't,' the Whirled News sketch show opened last night. Since we were competing with both the Vice Presidential Debate and a Chicago Cubs playoff game, we figured we'd have a very very small crowd. Showing up at the theater and seeing all the nearby streets closed off for the Cubs game, it became even clearer. No one was going to come. Under those circumstances I wouldn't have come (and I subtly suggested to a few people that they wait for a better week).

We decided to view it as a positive. The show is still a little rough around the edges and we could use the time to do a dress rehearsal.

Chin: We knew this was going to be a soft opening.

Then two people showed up. So... we did the show for two people. It's a little awkward to have only two people in the audience (especially during the audience participation scene I wrote), but it also keeps you more honest than a dress rehearsal, because even though it's just two people, it's an audience. No starting over. No yelling, "Line!"

We had to delay the start of the show by a few minutes.

Glynn: [whispering backstage] Are we ready to go?
Me: [whispering] We're holding. The entire audience is in the bathroom.

Midway through the show, I sneaked over by the bar and took a picture of the whole room. Cast on stage, Brady in the booth, lights shining down, two people in the audience (for whatever reason sitting in the fifth row, way over to the right side). It was blurry, but still, a great picture. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted all the pictures on my camera. A painful loss. So, like all live theater, good and bad, the moment is gone. You just had to be there. And I feel fairly confident you weren't.

2008-10-02T21:53:00.000-05:00

Both Chicago baseball teams are in the playoffs. Sarah is an avid White Sox fan. I am a Cubs fan in as much as I am a sports fan at all, which is not very much.

I realized recently that the question I ask most often when watching baseball is, "What is the longest a baseball game has ever gone on?"

2008-10-01T23:19:00.003-05:00

This week's 'Time Out Chicago' has some nice things to say about Whirled News Tonight. With the election season heating up they did a piece reviewing various Chicago news-based shows.

They write, "We have all of the makings of a citywide political-comedy powerhouse, but why is most of what’s out there—with the exception of WNT and parts of Second City’s shows—broad, obvious and boring?" Later on they write, "Where _____ falls flat, Whirled News excels. It wisely humanizes its players via improv, thereby creating honest, hilarious political commentary."

Steve is singled out in the piece as being "casually brilliant," something he's sure to be teased about when we all see him next. This was the same reviewer who referred to Steve as an "urban folk artist picking material off the street" in a review of his (admittedly great) sketch show with Jordan. Mr. Heisler lurvs Steve.

And luckily he seems to like Whirled News too. He writes that our upcoming sketch show 'Yes, We Can't,' "has the potential to be the brightest of the bunch." Well, we'll see. It opens tomorrow.

You can read the article here.

Edited to add: Apparently Whirled News was also mentioned on the local TV show 'Chicago Tonight.' (You may remember this is the show Glynn and I appeared on back in January, making jokes about the years biggest news stories) An editor from Time Out shared fun tips for weekend activities with the host, Phil Ponce. Near the end she recommends Whirled News, explaining how we pull news clippings off of the back wall to inspire our scenes.

Phil Ponce: So, this show is... literally... off the wall?

Time Out Editor: Oh... Phil...

You can see the video here. The brief WNT discussion is at 4:45.

2008-09-30T16:11:00.000-05:00

In honor of Young's birthday, here's an old picture of him high-fiving Wonder Woman.

2008-09-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

Drinks and $2 burgers.

Martin is back from his honeymoon.

Me: How was Miami?
Martin: Great.
Trupe: I heard the hotel was bad.
Martin: It was rundown, borderline seedy.
Nick: It had a five seed rating.
Martin: Not the best place.
Me: That's good luck, though, right?
Martin: Yeah, in the Philippines it's good luck.

2008-09-28T11:47:00.000-05:00

Comedy question...

Is it funnier if the person in the normal-size yellow chair is super-happy or super-sad? I go back and forth.

2008-09-27T15:53:00.000-05:00

Young does some multitasking: watching the presidential debate, memorizing his lines and playing 'Final Fantasy: Tactics' on the Nintendo DS, all at the same time.

2008-09-26T23:48:00.000-05:00

While writing jokes for the 'You Don't Know Jack' game, I would frequently write in bizarre and complicated sound effects, knowing that other people (Poland) would have to figure out how to make them work.

I seem to have done the same thing with this Whirled News sketch show, writing a scene that involves video, audience participation, wired voting paddles... basically a lo-fi DIY take on real-time polling. I wrote the sketch thinking mostly about how it seemed like an amusing idea, and very little about how it would actually work.

Luckily Glynn and Chin have figured out all the technical stuff, turning my dumb little idea into a very cool interactive piece that I'm excited about performing in the show next week.

2008-09-25T17:34:00.000-05:00

I hate memorizing lines, even when they're ones I wrote for myself in my own voice.

2008-09-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

For those that are curious, this is what my Mustache Day costume looked like.

The t-shirt I bought in North Carolina during the Joe and Shelby wedding trip (I hadn't packed enough shirts so had to buy some at a Dollar General). The hat was a random joke-purchase during a yearly cabin trip to Blueberry Island.

The mustache is now gone.

2008-09-23T16:50:00.000-05:00

After over two years, we've reached the 100th episode of the free online 'You Don't Know Jack' game, and... we've decided to stop.

Don't worry, that's not a bad thing. There's a lot going on behind the scenes at work right now, some of it involving YDKJ, some of it involving other stuff... and I really can't talk about any of it. Except to say that it's all rather exciting.

You can check out the 100th episode here. As part of the send-off there are eight different endings depending on how well you do. Some are wacky, some involve different recurring characters, some are surprisingly heartfelt(-ish).

[My favorite, I think, is the one where Cookie, the host, starts sobbing in despair and begins riffing on PD69 (I've changed his username here), a strange messageboard troll we were plagued by/fascinated with for a while. "[sobbing] I don’t have any friends at all. This is the only thing that sustains me. [blows nose] You know, I even miss that son of a bitch PD69. I [beep]ing hated that guy. I hated him with a passion. Ah. We all thought it was Nate. Was it Nate? Was that Nate trying to just [beep]ing ruin everybody’s life with that bull[beep]? Nah… it was some dude. Some very lonely dude. You know, probably a chronic masturbator. Lives at home… with his mom. Probably has a cat. I understand. We’re the same. We’re the same PD69! I’m no one to judge. I’m really not. He without sin, cast the first stone, you know. [long sobbing]" I wish I could take credit for that writing but it was all improvised by Tom Gottlieb, who does the voice of Cookie.]

The reactions in the comments section have been overwhelmingly positive, although, so far no one seems to have figured out there are multiple endings. They keep vaguely referring to it as "fitting" or "epic," not giving each other enough clues that they're hearing different things.

2008-09-22T22:03:00.000-05:00

The sketch show is fast approaching and we're finally getting some stuff up on its feet.

Young: I just realized that everything I wrote for this show requires a ridiculous costume.

2008-09-21T17:04:00.000-05:00

During the wedding reception, some of the older guests told Sarah and I that the priest reminded them of Robin Williams in "that wedding movie where he's the priest." We politely responded that we hadn't seen that movie, but, yes, the priest was very funny.

Here's Sarah with the bride, Kara.

Kara: The priest was great. But it was weird... we had to have these pre-wedding sessions, and at one point he asked us, "What if Kara gets a big opportunity and has to move to Hollywood? How would you both deal with that?" And I was, "Oh, that's in the past. I've given that up." He leans in, very serious, stares me in the eyes and says, "You haven't given it up." What?! He says, "I don't believe you. You haven't given up on your dream." I was like, you're killin' me here, Father! [takes drink] And just now, as he was leaving, he stopped me and whispered, "I'll be praying for you, that you make it big."

2008-09-20T18:18:00.000-05:00

Up in Wisconsin for, yes, another wedding. This one for one of Sarah's friends.

We didn't have much time to hang out in town before the wedding, but we did get to take some pictures in this awesome normal-size yellow chair.

2008-09-19T16:50:00.000-05:00

Amanda's birthday/Mustache Day at work. Everyone wore their costumes and mustaches to Fogo de Chao for lunch.

Here's Chris, Evan and Shane. I especially like Evan's Old Time Saloon Bartender costume.

Amanda: What are those things on your arms?
Evan: These? I don't know.
Shane: They keep your sleeves dry while you tend bar.
Evan: Really? Huh.
Amanda: Of course. Of course Shane knows that.

2008-09-18T21:06:00.000-05:00

Chin recently returned from Hawaii where he spent a week teaching classes at a newly opened improv theater there.

Chin: The ethnic make-up of the state is really interesting. There's no real majority. You know, 20% white, 20% asian, 20% native hawaiian. A big balanced mix. And it's the most natural thing in the world. But the weird part is, even with all that mixing of cultures... beginning improv students still start a lot of scenes by saying, "Johnson, get into my office."
Me: They say Johnson?
Chin: They say Johnson.
Me: They don't mix it up by saying, like, "Mekehiki, get into my office?"
Chin: No.
Me: I just made that name up.
Chin: I know.

2008-09-17T19:00:00.000-05:00

I spent a long time considering what caption to put with this picture, but I suppose it speaks for itself.

2008-09-16T11:23:00.000-05:00

Mustache Day at work is Friday. Like the 12 Days of Christmas, I like to celebrate a full workweek of mustache options, slowly paring it down as the week goes on.

2008-09-15T10:57:00.000-05:00

You may have read about CERN, the experiment in Switzerland where a giant proton collider was built to, as I understand it (and I almost certainly misunderstand it), simulate the Big Bang on a small scale and create tiny universes. This could give us a lot of insight into our own universe, but its mostly gotten a lot of press for, you know, the fact that some people are worried they'll create a black hole that will suck us all in or rip a hole into some Lovecraftian tentacle-monster dimension.

Science doesn't make for the best headlines, so that's probably why it tends to be reported with that news-of-the-weird/we're-all-going-to-die angle. Well... the Wall Street Journal has found an even news-of-the-weirder angle on the story. Improv.

Apparently Charna and some other improv teachers flew to Switzerland to run the CERN physicists through some improv exercises. This isn't really all that new. Businesses hire improv training centers and groups to teach team-building and communication all the time. Still, it's weird to read a head particle physicist quoted as saying, "Improv has got to be more difficult than doing physics. You have to think in milliseconds." Weird and neat... but probably wrong. I mean, after a couple hours of classes I still wouldn't know how to begin to operate a, "17-mile circular tunnel designed to smash protons together at nearly the speed of light."

Then again, if you made a Venn diagram of physicists and improvisers, there would be some overlap, even if it were ever so slight. The article quotes one scientist as quipping, "Do my bosons give you a hadron?" I don't know what either of those scientific terms mean, but its nice to see that dirty puns are universal.

You can check out the Wall Street Journal article here.

2008-09-14T16:46:00.001-05:00

All of the speeches during the reception (held in a very cool art studio) were really well done. Solid showings all around.

My favorite, though, was easily Marianna's father.

Father: [in a thick Polish accent] I have a reputation for not saying much. Some might even say I never speak at all. But, forgive me, tonight I will be talking a very long time, I think.

2008-09-13T16:22:00.000-05:00

Martin and Marianna's wedding.

More rain. Not that you could tell inside the church.

"In the Philippines, rain on your wedding day is good luck," the priest said, the booming, echo upon echo, Voice of God acoustics of the church making that old chestnut seem more true. Sitting out in the pews I found myself wishing I'd been asked to do a reading in the ceremony, just to hear my own voice bounce off itself a million times, reverberating from on high.

The priest seemed to enjoy it. He was a bit of a showman. "No one is in the unique position to get a better view of the bride coming down the aisle than the priest. Not even the groom. Sorry Martin, it's true. Ha ha."

Some of his bits worked better than others, though. "I would like to tell a joke. Here goes. 'I hope today... ISN'T the greatest day of your lives.' There. Joke."

2008-09-12T23:40:00.000-05:00

Timmy: Are you going to be at the show tomorrow night?
Me: No. I'm going to be at Martin's wedding.
Timmy: What?! Martin's wedding?! I wasn't invited to Martin's wedding!
Me: I think it's a really small guest list.
Timmy: Meador, are you going to be here tomorrow night?
Meador: No. I'm going to Martin's wedding.
Timmy: Oh come on! I performed with Martin for a year! I'm sending him an angry text message!

2008-09-11T23:46:00.001-05:00

As we get closer to the election and closer to opening the Whirled News sketch show we've added some actors to our sketch cast. Laura and Adal have sat in during our improv show several times and Melissa is part of Stir Friday Night, "Chicago's premier Asian American sketch comedy group." Chin directed their most recent show, 'Horry Kow: That's Lacist!"

2008-09-10T22:44:00.000-05:00

Hansen sent me a link to a promotional video for his law firm that he stars in.

Hansen: Me and a couple other people were given a small budget and the task of creating interesting marketing videos to attract future employees.

It's really great. If you have any interest in watching Hansen pimp strut through the halls of his law office, occasionally shooting balls of energy out of his finger (and why wouldn't you want to see that?) follow this link and click on the video labeled 'The Bonus.'

2008-09-09T19:14:00.000-05:00

Now that I work upstairs, I don't really see the people downstairs that much anymore. Like a wacky neighbor in a sitcom, though, I do pop in from time to time to hang out and see if there's anything good to eat in the fridge.

2008-09-08T17:10:00.000-05:00

Here's Knauf during the wedding, checking out the foreboding storm clouds. He flew in from Denver where he's been performing as the ringleader for the Squirm Burpee Circus since leaving Chicago.

Later, at the reception we talked about the last time I'd seen him, at his going away party, and how he'd been working on a plan to stick it to his old boss.

Me: Did it work?
Knauf: Yep. He drank it.

Basically, Knauf had poured a bottle of liquor into a basin, dipped his balls in it, poured the "ball-infused" liquor back into the bottle and resealed it. He took photos of the process and made a picture book that he sent to his old boss in the mail after they shared a going away toast of the special drink.

Me: So... you had to drink your ball drink too?
Knauf: It was worth it.

2008-09-07T16:54:00.000-05:00

The reception ended with Joe and Shelby riding off down the road on a tandem bicycle to their wedding night cabin.

Joe: We're actually just riding it out of sight. There's a car waiting for us at the bottom of the hill.

Thinking the night was over (except for some drinking back at the hotel), Sarah and I headed for the shuttles. On our way, though, we ran into some of Joe's family that asked if we were up for "one more thing." They handed us each a paper with handwritten lyrics and across the top the words, "Songs for the Shivaree (sp?)"

An hour later, we were outside Joe and Shelby's cabin, serenading them.

2008-09-06T23:08:00.000-05:00

After some drizzle, everyone in attendance moving their chairs inside, a break in the storm, everyone moving their chairs back out, and more ominous rumblings and sprinklings that I was convinced was going to lead to a torrential downpour midway through the ceremony... suddenly, right before the vows, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and minutes later, Joe and Shelby were running down the aisle, newly wed, and barely wet.

2008-09-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

Midway through relaxing and enjoying the rehearsal dinner, those of us on Otis that had been able to make it down for the weekend (Marc, Gandy and Duffy) realized we were supposed to do some kind of improv game during the toasts portion of the evening.

Shelby: Didn't Joe tell you? He was supposed to tell you weeks ago.
Arnie: No...
Marc: He means yes. Right?
Arnie: Oh. Yes. I'm sure he e-mailed us. In fact, yes, he e-mailed us. I must have forgot. It's not Joe's fault.

Despite being improvisers, we're not particularly fond of coming up with something at the last minute. Especially at a special occasion.

Instead of doing a short improv game (which is not really the kind of improv we do), we got everyone there to sing, 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.' It's an effective audience warm-up exercise that Joe does when he hosts at iO. Everyone in the room sings the song, standing up (or sitting down) on every word that starts with a B. And there's crazy fast standing and sitting at the end with "bring [stand] back [sit], bring [stand] back [sit], oh bring [stand] back [sit] my bonnie [stand] to me to me." Like that.

It's goofy campfire-style fun, and although I doubt it particularly impressed anyone there ("Boy, I've got to go check out that Chicago improv!"), it was a nice little game involving something we think of when we think of Joe.

As soon as we got back to our seats it occurred to me that we could have ended by saying something like, "We're glad Joe has finally found his bonnie." Then again, I'm not 100% sure "bonnie" actually means "love" or "girl." I could have accidentally said, "We're glad Joe has finally found him mom."

2008-09-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

On the road. Joe and Shelby's wedding is this weekend in a secluded part of North Carolina. It was either fly, rent a car and drive three hours, or just drive the whole way. We decided to drive the whole way.

Sarah's friends Verni and Mary Beth came along for the ride.

Me: So... wait... where are the hurricanes right now?
Verni: Pretty much where we're going.

This shot was taken during one of the few moments when it wasn't pouring rain (or we weren't eating at a Cracker Barrel).

2008-09-03T23:56:00.000-05:00

It's politics season. Like any good American, I'm trying to keep myself as informed as possible. But I've got to be honest, I've been watching the Republican National Convention mostly for the jokes. Not their jokes, my jokes... rather, the jokes I'll need to be able to make in a Whirled News show or the jokes I need to write for our upcoming sketch show.

It's interesting to see all sides scramble to define what "character" each candidate becomes. It's most obvious with Governor Palin right now( but to some extent it's true with all the players). She's a Hockey Mom. She's a Cynical Ploy. She's a Nutjob Hiding Baby Conspiracies. Everyone won't completely agree, but eventually some kind of generally accepted persona will stick.

And a big part of defining that will be the comedians. The jokes we hear, the impressions we see. Just like how everyone that does a George H.W. Bush impression is really just doing an impression of Dana Carvey's impression. Or, it's like "finding the game" in an improv scene (something funny happens and the premise of the scene presents itself and everyone jumps onboard, working together on the shared joke). They're oversimplifications, sure, but every presidency I've lived through can be boiled down to their joke persona (Dubya, Slick Willie, Nah Gonna Duh It, Wellllll....).

During last weekend's Whirled News show we did a scene about Sarah Palin's beauty pageant past, improvising vice presidential debates with an evening gown competition. It was funny and well received (especially the idea of Joe Biden in a dress). We talked about writing it up for our upcoming sketch show, but it already seems a little off-the-mark to me. Look, in case you couldn't guess, I'm not a fan, but I don't think vapid pageant queen is going to be the lasting joke. I think there are truer jokes to be had that are funnier(/scarier).

Mostly, while watching her speech, I kept getting distracted by the giant Liberty Bell picture behind her. What was the secret message I was missing? Is Liberty Bell code for something I don't get? Every interpretation I could think of was fairly negative. Besides the crass one (which, I have to admit, I did say out loud, and it made Sarah, my girlfriend, laugh, but shake her head disapprovingly), the only thing I could think was "The Liberty Bell is a powerful symbol that none the less doesn't actually work."

By the end, I had a few more ideas about who she is (Tracy Flick? The Weakest Link lady?), but I'm still not sure what will still be funny about her in a couple months.

[An odd side-note. There's a rumor swirling around my extended family that one of my uncles briefly dated Sarah Palin. I don't know if it's true (a cousin texted an aunt who told my mom). He's one of my favorite uncles, but I only really talk to him at the occasional family Christmas, so it would probably be rude to e-mail him and say, "Hey, did you really date her?"]

2008-09-02T10:43:00.000-05:00

Jokes. Where do they come from?

I've cracked a lot of jokes in my time, and as someone surrounded by funny people (at work and socially), the air around me is always full of them.

But I've never come up with a JOKE. You know, of the school yard, "tell me a joke" variety.

Steve-o: I came up with an honest to goodness joke once. It's pretty good too. You know the old, "What do you call a man with no arms and no legs in the water" jokes?
Me: Yeah. Bob.
Steve-o: Well I came up with, "What do you call the girlfriend of a man with no arms and no legs?" [wait for it] "Carrie."
Me: That's pretty good.
Steve-o: I know. And I've been waiting 20 years for it to catch on, for it to come back to me. I want to hear someone tell me that joke. But it never has.
Me: It definitely has that joke quality.
Steve-o: Pass it along. Tell people. Get it out there.

2008-09-01T17:12:00.000-05:00

'Friday Night Tailgate,' the sports show Steve and Jordan "report" for, had it's season premiere... well, Friday night. They did several segments and bits in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

This picture is of one of the early ones in the hour and a half long show.

Jordan: Hello, I'm Jordan.
Steve: And I'm Steve.
[Jordan thwacks Steve in the arm]
Steve: ... and I'm Mosher.
Jordan: And we're here in front of the Mosher-Jordan Halls.

I hung out briefly with Steve this weekend after he was back from his exhausting first week.

Steve: One night, I guess it was Thursday, Jordan and I went to a sports bar next to our hotel. And Jimmy Fallon was there. We debated whether we should say anything to him, but he was by himself and seemed friendly to his waitress so we went up and said hi, mentioned some people we knew in common, you know, Lutz. He invited us to play bar trivia with him. He was really nice, really funny. We hung out for, like, three hours. Two different drunk guys came up to him at different times and called him Jimmy Kimmel. Anyway, he was really nice. The next night, Jordan and I come back to watch our show on the big screens. The same waitress as the other night is there and she tells us she feels bad that the night before she couldn't figure out who Jimmy Fallon was. "I knew he looked familiar but I couldn't put a name to the face." And the whole time, our show is playing right behind her. I asked her, "Do you know who that guy is?" pointing to the TV. "Nope." "You've never seen him before?" "I don't think so." "That's him. That's Jordan." "Is everyone you know on television?"

2008-08-31T11:26:00.000-05:00

It's also wedding season.

I have three weddings to go to over the next three weekends, two of them of the destination variety.

All of them should be fun, but I realized today that I'm not going to be able to perform in an improv show until September 26th. That's a long time.

2008-08-30T23:37:00.001-05:00

It's moving weekend in Chicago.

During my 8:00 Whirled News show the audience suggestion for the second act was "moving day." Padraic gave a monolouge about how he still needs people to help him move tomorrow. No one in the cast (or audience) seemed willing to volunteer.

During my 10:30 Diplomat Motel show, the audience volunteer for the Dream (where we do a short improv piece about the things that happened to an audience member that day) explained that they'd spent the day moving.

Eckart, pictured here backstage with boxes of Swanel, also moved today. Before moving in with his girlfriend this weekend, Eckart has lived in the same large apartment for what I would guess is just shy of a decade. During that time he's had a large rotating cast of improvisers as his roommates. Dozens of improvisers have lived there over the years, including some incredibly highly regarded ones (at least in improv circles) like T.J. Jagadowski, Bob Dassie and Jack McBrayer (Kenneth from '30 Rock'). Hell, I even lived there for about three months myself once.

A few performers will still be living there, continuing the tradition, but it seems like the end of an era now that Eckart no longer holds the lease on Chicago improv's "Chelsea Hotel."

Eckart: Someone was saying I should put a row of headshots going up the front stairs, of everyone who'd lived there. Like the headshots along the ramp when you walk into iO.
Me: I don't really have headshots but I would have gotten you a picture.
Eckart: I ended up not doing it. Pretty low on the priority list. But who knows, I still know the people who live there. Maybe it'll happen eventually.

2008-08-29T16:48:00.000-05:00

I took this picture late at night at a party a few months back. Looking at it now, I'm trying to figure out if I thought the chalk board was funny because of the phrase "DSL + Milk" or if it was because I'd never realized Com Ed was so close to "comedy."

2008-08-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

For convenience sake we've had the last two sketch show meetings at Caribou Coffee. So we read our sketches with someone writing their screenplay on one side of us and someone else conducting vaguely shady job interviews on the other side of us.

We talked about how we were all DVR-ing the Obama speech we were missing.

2008-08-27T16:54:00.000-05:00

My senior year of college (undergrad) I took a "cross-curriculum" class on The Study of Irony. I was excited about the class after having done some nerdy research of my own for an After Dinner Speech, 'Is Our Society Becoming Too Ironic?' (It didn't do as well as my competition speech the year before, 'Is Our Society Becoming Too Paranoid?')

The class itself was easy, which is good when you're a senior checking off the last of your required credit hours, but beyond that it was a disappointment. It was cross-curricular only in the sense that it was taught by a French teacher. He was a nice enough guy, but he taught us in the call and response manner of a remedial language class. After reading aloud, say, a passage from a Shell Silverstein poem, he'd ask the class, "Was that ironic?" We'd answer yes or no and he'd move on to the next example. A Dilbert cartoon. "Is this ironic?" Yes. "Is this ironic?" Yes. (Hint: They were pretty much all ironic)

Further discussion or probing questions weren't so much discouraged as met with an awkward silence from the teacher and the class. I quickly got tired of being the annoying guy in class who would say things like, "I read about a psychological study on irony, or more specifically sarcasm, that when people use sarcasm they often really do mean the surface meaning. Instead of there's a surface meaning in quotation marks but the real meaning is the hidden meaning underneath. It's the opposite. We use the irony to say things that are too dorky or too sincere. So the hidden meaning is actually hiding the fact that we really mean the surface meaning but can't allow ourselves to just say those... things... which is... kind of interesting, right? Maybe we could... I don't know... is that something we could.... discuss? Anybody? No? Okay. Then yes, I do think this Dr. Seuss story is ironic."

A girl I was kind-of-almost-dating had her own senior year cross-curriculum class at the same time. Her's was on Existentialism. We'd run into each other in the halls after our respective classes.

Me: How's Existentialism?
Her: Better than I expected. How's Irony?
Me: Not as good as you'd think.

2008-08-26T15:38:00.000-05:00

Poland, who now works in the small TV upstairs instead of the bigger one downstairs, recently wrote on his blog about his son getting in trouble at summer camp. He wasn't sure exactly what the problem had been until he read the official note from the camp that explained that his son, "has been making 'farting' noises with his armpit. We discussed how it was inappropriate at camp and a big distraction to other campers. He continued to make the noises while we were in a large group after he was told to stop. Could you please talk to him about appropriate behavior?"

He wrote on his blog, "And just how does one punish rogue armpit flatus? No tank tops for a week!"

Poland: I asked him why he wouldn't stop. He said it was because the attention he got felt too good to resist. The laughs.
Me: Yep.
Poland: He's gotten a taste for it.
Me: Wait 'til he finds out how much of his dad's job involves fart noises.

Poland was kind enough to let me take this picture, even though he was unhappy with his hair.

Steve-o: Have the top of the screen cut it off.
Poland: Yeah. I'll do that.
Steve-o: Although, I think you're overestimating how well we can actually see you.

[As a side note, all four of the people mentioned in this post can be (kind of) seen in this picture.]

2008-08-25T23:26:00.000-05:00

Sarah got us tickets to see a free screening of Alan Ball's upcoming movie, 'Towelhead.' He answered some questions afterward.

Ball: I don't try to intentionally provoke people, or make them uncomfortable. I guess I'm just an incredibly twisted person. The same things aren't shocking to me.

As you can tell from this picture, we were not in the front row this time. You can kind of see Ball sitting up front, under the rolling credits.

Sarah: From back here he sort of looks like Ricky Gervais.

2008-08-24T16:34:00.000-05:00

I noticed that CVS now has a Political Birthday Card shelf.

For example, one of the cards reads, "Have a Democratic Birthday Party." Inside it reads, "All the candles lean to the left."

The Republican version is exactly the same except, "all the candles lean to the right."

2008-08-23T11:46:00.000-05:00

Steve biked over today to record another in our ongoing series of Mystery Cove podcasts (subscribe to it via iTunes!).

Steve was recently hired to be a funny man-on-campus correspondent for Fright Night Tailgate, a college football show on the Big Ten Network. He'll be doing it along with Jordan, who also appeared on the show last year. So that's essentially what both of them will be up to for the next 13 weeks, traveling to college campuses and shooting funny remote pieces.

Steve: I just ran into an old high school acquaintance in an airport and she asked me what I was up to these days. I told her I'd just been hired as a correspondent on this football show. She just paused and said, "So... have you.... become someone who knows a lot about football?"
Me: You'll be fine.
Steve: I head off in two days. I'm not really sure what to expect.
Me: Do you have any kind of itinerary?
Steve: Yeah. This first week I'm going to box a woman and go water skiing.

2008-08-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

This sign is funny, but also, sadly, true. If you have to spend much time in Wrigleyville, you're going to smell some urine.

2008-08-21T15:36:00.001-05:00

At a work lunch, Innis and I were talking about having names that are easy to make fun of.

Me: Do you ever think about just giving up and changing your name to Anus?
Innis: I hate you. When I was a senior in high school my soccer coach gave me the coach's award and called me Penis in front of the whole assembly.
Me: Ouch.
Innis: He was Greek with a heavy accent, though.
Me: I just had to put up with a lot of "did you camp on your knee" jokes.
Innis: Taunts are tougher when they aren't funny.

[By the way, as I was taking this picture of Innis (and his pre-Mustache Day beard) an almost heavenly ray of light descended down on him through the Goose Island skylight.]