If I’m chewing on an artistic or technical problem late at night, I’ll go to bed and then toss and turn and keep half-waking up and mulling over the problem and possible solutions. One in ten times this happens, I’ll wake up with a great solution to the problem, fully realized. More often, however, it goes like it did last night. I went to bed thinking about how exactly to edit the opening to a new Blewt variety show we just filmed. Around 3am (I checked the clock, thinking it was almost morning) I started to think that a puppet or animated cotton work glove would be a great mascot for the show (let me be clear, the show has nothing to do with gloves and none appear in the show). Over the rest of the night, in this dream state, I worked out an entire mechanism for building a wireframe inside a glove, propping it up in front of a green screen, and then stop-motion animating it. In the morning, I realized that a) I’d re-invented the Hamburger Helper glove and b) that this was the dumbest idea ever in the history of ever.
Me in my usual show shirt, looking extra hilarious in 2008.
About a hundred years ago (well, around ten) I was occasionally working with a corporate comedy group called Chicago Comedy Company founded by old friends Andy Eninger and Steve Matuszak and when they opened a theater in the suburbs, of the same name, I sometimes performed there as well. Five years ago, another good friend, Lillie Frances, bought the company and theater and I started performing more often. The name of the theater was changed to Laugh Out Loud (which frankly makes a little more sense for a place in the suburbs, though it is still true that most of the performers drive out from Chicago). I stopped performing at the theater back in 2010, but this weekend is the 5th Anniversary and the theater is celebrating with a weekend of Alumni shows. I’ll be performing in the Friday, 7:30 “family-friendly” show. Tickets are just $5.
Laugh Out Loud Theater
601 N. Martingale Road
Streets of Woodfield, Suite 171
Schaumburg, IL
I thought freelancing would mean blogging galore, but instead it’s a lot of running around working for other people (I mean, who knew, right?) and being, for example, two weeks late talking about a big race like the Solider Field 10. Anyway, we did talk about it on the podcast (also late) and Erica blogged the heck out of it—for good reason, it’s the longest she’s ever run in her life and I’m really proud of her.
A postscript: a lesson learned, don’t try to do math right after a race. I tweeted that this was a PR for 10 miles, but in fact I was three minutes faster last year. Oops.
Official Results:
Time: 1:39:33
Pace: 9:58
Place: 7094 / 12537
Place in Age Group (M, 40-44): 607 / 868
Place in Gender: 3813 / 5337
So, we’d probably do it anyway, but one of the perks of the freelance life is that when a friend asks, “Are you busy Friday morning? Can you join us in Star Trek uniforms at the WGN Morning News to do a bit for William Shatner?” you can say “sure!” with zero hesitation. Chad and Jenny Byers of the World of the Weird Monster Show were kind enough to not only ask us to join them, but to loan Erica and I much better costumes than we could have put together.
WGN has posted clips of the several bits we did with and for Shatner: providing him with various Star Trek tableaux as he walked from his green room to the studio, making up the audience for his interview, and fielding a scifi trivia team to face off against Shatner. And Tom Abraham’s Gorn stuck around to help Smarty Pants and some kids build a balloon car.
This is not my first time hanging out with the man:
Erica, Kristen, Claire, Shaun, and I all ran the Rave Run 5K last weekend. It’s an untimed novelty run with raveish music and (some) lights along the course. It was fun, but in the podcast we get a bit nitpicky about how it didn’t quite live up to its own hype. But hey, when else do I get to paint my fingernails.
I was asked by a friend for running headphone recommendations because “white earbuds be slipping and sliding”. I pooped out this little review below that will probably not help her, because I use the thing that doesn’t work for her, but may help you. Or not.
For day-to-day use I wear Skull Candy Ink’d (w/ Mic) because they are cheap (I find them on sale for less than $10 fairly often and buy in bulk when I do, because I’m hard on headphones) and they’re pretty good at blocking outside noise, which really helps on the train. But that feature makes them terrible for running—they block too much noise and I worry I’m going to miss some insanely fast cyclist grunting “left!” or a mother who just lost her stroller yelling the traditional “my baby!” and get in a wreck.
For running and cycling, then, I usually wear the white ear buds that come with iPhones—they’re actually kinda crappy at keeping out background noise, which is good for me, and I like having the little mic/control so I can pause music quickly to be able to hear even better. Right now I also have in the mix some crappy earbuds that were a promo item from Brooks at the last race expo I went to. They don’t have a control, but they were free. That’s a thing for me—I’m hard on headphones, but I’m really hard on running headphones. If I don’t catch them on something and end up stomping on them, then my sweat corrodes them into non-functionality.
I’ve never tried any of the hook-over-the-ear or whathaveyou type headphones. Sorry!
warmly,
Fuzzy
TOC
Hump Night
Shamrock Shuffle 8K 2013
Puppets, Singing
Puppet Improv
A Coupla Quickies
Team Robot Lazer Kittens
Rock 'n' Roll New Orleans Marathon (PR)
Hey, I Know Them
ZZZZZZ
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