I have three shows in the next week, and Chicago Underground has the week off. Clearly something weird is in the air. I had not planned to do shows again with regularity until June.
I have a free show, my first Zanies show, and a Chicago Public Radio contest show.
The free show should be fun. It's at the Threadless Store in Lakeview with an LA comic named Dan Bialek. I hope to make it a fun, chill event. Come out, I will be reading from my list of rejected Threadless slogan tees.
The Zanies show will rule. I have my entire set figured out. Other comics know what it means to do a set at Zanies, so I will say for the unaware that Zanies has a lot of "parameters". I do not find this intimidating. Also I would like to make a good impression, so again come out if you have nothing to do! It's a nice huge lineup.
The Chicago Public Radio show? Well, how do I put this... It will be fun! It's a contest, so more on that AFTER it's over with.
Supposedly my blog has almost 10,000 views now. Somehow that must be a lie.
For the first time in 10 years, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind is auditioning for a male cast member and I am NOT auditioning. Just not interested anymore. Part of me still wishes I'd done it for a while. Maybe back when I was 23 and did the audition piece about how tomatoes look like human organs and disgust me? Perhaps when I was 27 and did the piece about smoking that got me one of the few callbacks they did that year? It doesn't matter now. No matter how much I love a theater company, I simply don't have it in me to convince one to like me if they don't already. That was a fun game for a while. Well, no it wasn't. But it was fun to dream the game would end, and it did, though not like I thought it would.
They just played on Conan O'Brien, which started with a great Tina Fey interview. It's like my worst nightmare- an emo band with no talent that is trying desperately to appeal to me by using sarcastic nerd-words like "interweb". The real reason I hate this band, though, is the lead singer. Lead singers are a linchpin for me- if they sound bad I cannot find one good thing about the band they're with. But this guy looks like David Arquette with a heated firepoker spinning in his rectum, and he sings like it too.
Grand Theft Auto IV comes out in two days, let me know what it's like.
First of all, apologies to those who couldn't stomach my whining about being short of cash. I should know better than to whine online, because it then invites people to whine about my whining, something so painful to look at that my blog spontaneously anthropomorphized and stabbed itself in the eyes.
Here's my DC audition:
I probably should have ended a joke earlier. I don't know why, but that last joke is usually about 30 seconds shorter and much better. Either way I like the set, and it's nice to have online to send to people and shit.
I have so much new material that I'm semi-retiring a lot of stuff I wrote in my first year. This is good- I think I'm finally starting to do stuff I like, and will continue to like for some time.
This is coming from 15 years of theater auditions, though. I hate those. I am never the right personality or body type for any already-written play, so it's always a pathetic attempt to squeeze myself into a role I don't belong in. I've done very well getting parts written for me (some I've written for myself), but original works are of course harder to produce and a good one is a rare find.
Last night was a stand-up audition though, my first "live" one after sending in many clips and reels to various showcases and festivals in the last year. I was incredibly nervous- but guess what- I have complete writing control over my audition and a huge, live, drinking audience. You can't ask for better audition circumstances than that! It was a lot of fun. This is essentially what I used to do in theater school- I could never find a good monologue for a geek with gigantism, so I would write my own and assign it to a non-existent play by a fake author. So obviously auditioning as stand-up is a better version of this on many levels, the best being that I'm not breaking some rule where I'm expected to find a good monologue by someone else and I cheat.
I don't really have much to say about my audition, I'd rather just see what happens. But I did find it interesting that some of my friends who were also auditioning were nervous, but then they hammered it out of the park. Possibly the best sets I've ever seen from Brendan McGowan and Fay Canale. People destroyed.
I can't wait for my next paycheck. I spent my last one on Penguin clothes, and now I'm a little low on coffee and train money. Comedy's a hoot, but even an oversold cheering crowd doesn't mean you got a dollar from it. "One day!@"
I find for my "mood" in my blog I often pick something from the beginning of the alphabet in the drop-down menu because I'm lazy. Let's dig deep today.
I'm running like, 2 for 20 with my recent Netflix DVDs. I could go on about what sucks, but you will just waste my time telling me why I'm wrong, and I won't listen.
So, here's some stuff I've enjoyed recently:
1) Slings and Arrows (Canadian TV series) 2) Battlestar Galactica: Razor 3) Futurama: Bender's Big Score
Here's what I am sick to death of:
1) Angry, hateful protagonists who never even attempt to redeem themselves (a failed attempt at redemption would be a blessing, I mean seriously). 2) Likable protagonists who die horribly. 3) Movies that jump across decades just to show an actor can still act in old-age makeup, and attempt to get some makeup artist a Makeup Oscar I guess. 4) Movies that are more concerned with making a statement than having a story.
Please indulge me: what do you recommend? I will respond to all recommendations.
In my Science Channel adventures I’ve discovered its cousin up there in the 200’s of my cable box range- the National Geographic Channel.
Lots of commericals targeted towards progressive science dorks. There’s an ad for a drug that relaxes your sphincter, and to convince you to take it there is a guy who paints model planets for a planetarium. Even he has rectum dysfunction as it turns out! Like nerds need reminding too! Hahaha! Hilarious.
But my favorite prog-nerd commercial is an for wecansolveit.org, and environmental action group. It starts with stock footage of history, and a voiceover:
(Shot of WW2 soldiers)
"America didn’t wait for someone else to storm the beaches of Normandy..."
(Shot of blacks marching on Washington)
"America didn’t wait for someone else to create civil liberties..."
Hahahaha! You stupid motherfuckers! Commitment to World War II and rights for ethnic minorities are two ways that America totally dragged it’s feet and fucked up! You imbeciles!
Clearly Republicans are final forming their own conservation groups. Isn’t it grand?
obsequious
savage
artistic
wanted
warm
vehement
voluminous
ashamed
catalyzed
amused