FuzzyCo

How can you live with just one film on your tshirt?

I'm taking my daily Movember photo with the helpful iPhone app Everyday which both reminds me at the same time everyday to take the photo and provides some helpful guidelines so that my head is in the same place every time (facilitating making a little video at the end of the month). This time I'm in my office as usual, but I flipped 180° by sitting in my visitor chair.

Penny Arcade does Movember as well.

I used to see a lot of shows here in Chicago. But lately I've gotten my old-man on and, as I joke, I barely make it out of the house to shows I'm in, let alone see anyone else's. But this weekend we're making up for lost time. Last night we went and saw the closing night of Amanda Rountree's The Good, the Bad, and the Monkey. Tonight we're seeing Jin and Joshi: Race Card Sharks and the Kiss Kiss Cabaret. And Saturday night we're seeing Impress These Apes Season 6 winner Jo Scott's Thankful and Sean Cusick in Urlakis and Cusick. Five shows in three days. It's kinda raddichio.

Please, do enjoy the ride.

I have pretty good GoogleFu, and when it fails, I've had some luck with just putting the questions out there and letting time and other people's Google skills bring the answers to me. In January, I asked on Ask Metafilter if anyone knew of how to get a copy (legitimately, hopefully) of Todd Louiso's short film adaptation of Tom Stoppard's 15-Minute Hamlet (starring Austin Pendleton as Hamlet, Todd Louiso as Ophelia, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in several roles). Noone on that usually helpful site had any ideas, but this weekend I received an email from a helpful Internet stranger who had seen that question and then had gone on to find a recently-uploaded (10 days ago today!) copy from someone's old video tape (they say "1980s", but the film is from 1995, so their memory is tricking them) and was kind enough to circle back around and send me an email pointing at the videos. Thanks, AC!

And why wouldn't I share this delightful short film with you:

So y'all know that my friend Matt wrote a book about flying Predators (you know drones… I mean UAVs… I mean RPAs… I mean UPSADAISYs*). Anyway, a couple of weeks ago he was on the NPR show On Point with Tom Ashbrook talking about the topic. (Download with iTunes)

* Un-Piloted Service Aircraft Detecting Intelligent Systems, Yep

We* have just started a Kickstarter campaign to help us film a proper TV pilot for Don't Spit the Water, our crazy live game show.

We did the show as a live show in an open run at the Playground for four years and we're really proud of the show and think it's a concept and framework that really has legs. Over the years, we've had a lot of chances to pitch the show to a variety of networks, and had a lot of near-misses. And maybe that's OK, because anyone who bought the show from us would likely change it all up. So now, Steve has had few pieces of luck come together, and he's screwed his courage to the sticking place, and we're going to film a pilot ourselves, the way we want to. We've got a guarantee from Weigel Broadcasting (they do The U and Me TV here in Chicago) that if we produce a broadcast-quality show, they'll air it on one of their stations. We've got a for-reals production company lined up to do us up right with multiple cameras, good lighting, sound and all that. But of course, even pulling in as many favors as we can, that costs money. So, the Kickstarter campaign.

Kickstarter is a site that helps project starters and donors connect. A big benefit to donors is that you can be sure that your money isn't wasted if the project doesn't go forward -- Kickstarter takes your pledge but then only collects the money if the whole amount has been pledged. The other benefit is the rewards we're giving to people for the different pledge levels—things like I Want to Draw a Cat for You drawings, Threadless gift certificates, tickets to the pilot taping, or best of all, getting to be one of the contestants in the taping.

I've been slow writing this post, and we're already 1/3 of the way to our goal!

* In this context, we = Blewt Productions, the Steve Gadlin-helmed group that includes a number of our friends, Erica, and myself.

You know what? I made those buttons. If that's not a reason to go see Dan, and a bunch of other talented folks, I don't know what is.

Y'all know I'm a longtime fan of Coudal Partners' Layer Tennis, the online live design contest. Every week the order of the two contestants is determined by a coin flip by The Ref. This week is the Championship Match of the season* and Coudal has an appropriately grandiose coin flip: fancy dancing ladies choreographed by (and including) Erica.

The Flip

Steve's Thanks to the Dancers

* One of the two finalists in the season today is Mig Reyes, who I played in the first ever Layer Tennis Qualifying Match. Yeah, that's right, I gave the kid his start.

Update: I took some behind the scenes shots at filming of the video, including some on, not that it matters but I'm mentioning anyway, some shot on some black&white film I'm trying to use up because, really, film?

Flickr set of the aforementioned

Here at Team Gerdes, we heartily endorse telling cancer to get fucked, so I point you at Chris Courtney's Hey Cancer, Fuck You. His story, here.

(via Scott Smith, who has his own special message to cancer.)

I have a recommendation for a book I haven't actually read yet. My friend Matt J. Martin's first book, Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot's Story, is now available for pre-order. Matt was a pilot of the Predator unmanned aircraft for the Air Force and this is the first book about first-hand experiences flying those aircraft in combat. As I said, I haven't read it yet, but just from hearing some of Matt's stories over the years, I'm sure it'll be a fascinating book.

How does Erica rock the DDPP? Like this!

A picture I took of Erica for our friends at PoCampo—our favorite brand of fashionable ladies' bicycle bags—will be in their ad in the next issue of Urban Velo. It's a little funny—I do take publicity shots* but the day of the shoot Erica was going to model for them and I just came along to shoot some video on the side and I brought my camera as I usually do. In this shot, Erica is just pausing for a moment from posing for the real photographer and glancing over at me. I guess there's just a magic between us that says "hey, buy a bike purse".

* Hint, hint. I can be hired for such. Cough. Hint.

Lulu is running a free shipping sale right now (technically, $3.99 off shipping) with the coupon code FREEMAIL305. What could you use this coupon for? Well, you could get a copy of Erica's grandfather's autobiography*. Or you could get one (or more) of Dan Telfer's delightful fake-fact chapbooks. So there.

* Also available free as a PDF. But maybe you like print.

Fuerza Bruta is a crazy dance/music/performance piece. It's an amazing spectacle and Erica and I loved seeing it in New York. The show is coming to Chicago starting May 21 and I heartily recommend seeing it if you have the spare $50.

My good friend Erica Livingston has written a play which features three naked ladies in a tub making soup of themselves. Or something. It's not quite clear to me yet, and this video confuses me even more. But it's a New York Neo-Futurists main stage production and Erica (Gerdes) and I are planning on taking a trip out in March to see it.

The Soup Show
March 4-27, 2010
Here Arts Center, 145 6th Ave, NY, NY

Dear lord, why is this not yet an internet sensation? Fantasy Grandma! From what I understand (from the end of the video) they will be at Sticky (whatever that is) somewhere in New York tomorrow night.

(via Erica and Erica)

Greater Lafayette, it's Great!

Patricia Henley, novelist and creative writer professor at Purdue, writes about Lafayette in the February Smithsonian Magazine. (via @girlinblack)

Also, Chicago's own The Uptown Sound return to Lafayette this Friday. If you caught their Friends of Bob show at the Lafayette Brewing Company, you know how awesome they are. If you missed it, now's your chance to correct that mistake.

JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound, Green Room Rockers, Fredericks Martinez
Friday, January 29, 9pm
Riverside Sports & Music Center
402 Brown St
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
Tickets: $8

And speaking of the Uptown Sound, if you haven't heard yet their masterful cover of Wilco's I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, well you should.

Erica collects all the accolades that Blewt has collected in year-end wrap-ups.

Phineas Jones is having a ROCK ME BABY JESUS sale -- all of his awesome rock posters, like the great Mike Doughty/Andrew Livingston poster above, are just $10 through Sunday. They make great stocking stuffers, especially if you have friends who like having carefully hand-printed art posters crumpled up into a sock.

I got my copy of thisisrabbit's Don't Be Sad chapbook in the mail yesterday and I was going to suggest that if you know anyone who, like me, loves sad, dark, hilarious comics that you should order a copy for them for Christmas. But it's sold out. So, um, send your sad, dark comics loving friend over to my house and they can read it there and then we can drink black coffee and laugh and sigh at the world.

Kate's show has opened and will be up through December 23. May I suggest that prints and plushies from the show would make excellent Christmas gifts?

In case you couldn't tell, that's a parliment of owls playing Scrabble. Kate has a show opening at the Fill in the Blank Gallery (5038 N Lincoln, Chicago) of illustrations and plushies inspired by Terms of Venery (you know, specialized collective nouns for groups of animals, from the common ones like a herd of cows or a pride of lions, to the more obscure like the aforementioned parliment or, my favorite, a murder of crows). There's an opening recepition this Friday from 7-11 pm and then the show runs through the end of the year (I think).

-J-J- presents How to Prepare a Thanksgiving Hand Turkey.

Our friend Beth makes fun and funny pillows under the name Diffraction Fiber (you may have seen her ctrl-alt-delete pillow set on your favorite nerd blog) and we've given her state pillows as wedding presents before. So when we trying to come up with a wedding present for our friends Ben and Emily, we thinking about getting them an Illinois pillow, because they both love Chicago (they even had their Chicago-themed apartment featured in a Time Out article). Brainstorm—why not pillows of the Chicago flag? They came out great—we gave two to Ben and Emily and kept two for ourselves (I'm justifying it by telling myself that 4 pillows would be awkward on a couch). Beth says she's adding them to her repertoire, so if you love Chicago as much as we do, order a set today.

Our good friend Rebecca Rine-Stone was on WGN 720's "The Sunday Papers" show with Rick Kogan this morning, to talk about her book, Sunbathing in a Bodycast. I was up anyway, to get ready to go run the Bucktown 5k, but I can understand if you might have been sleeping in on a Sunday morning, so I recorded the interview for you:

Holy new and old worlds colliding, Batman: JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound, one of my favorite Chicago bands, are going to be playing a Friends of Bob show at the Lafayette Brewing Company on Friday, October 30 at 8 pm. They're bringing their extended line-up with a horn section and a second vocalist, which will make them even more awesome than they usually are (which is pretty darn awesome). I highly recommend the show to all my 765 peeps.

Erica choreographed this. Which means that she also choreographed this. Win!

I know how your mind works. You love Kate O'Leary's designs, but you'd rather not give your money nearly-directly to her through her Etsy shop or anything. You'd rather pay a mid-sized corporation for the privilege. Well, Kohl's to the rescue. Kate did a bunch of designs for Kohl's Harvest and Halloween lines and they're now available in store and online.

FuzzyCo friend Ali Davis has finally published her hit web journal (yes, from back in the days when they were "web journals" and not blogs) True Porn Clerk Stories as a print and Kindle book. You want a 10 minute audio preview in the inimitable This American Life style? Done.

There's an explanation, but just enjoy this awesome video and song. So many thanks to Noah and the whole crew for putting this together for us.

Lola Balatro keeps cranking out the hits. (They premiered this video at the CD release party and I can't stop humming it.)

FuzzyCo friends JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound are profiled in today's Tribune. The print edition is accompanied by a large photo by moi (no photo credit, as is normal practice for a supplied photo). Umm.. this one. Imagine that one big and in black and white. There, I just saved you $0.75. And killed newspapers. Oops.

Erica (as "Lucy Silver") was the special guest co-host on Talkin' Funny last night. I was sitting right beside the camera trying not to laugh out loud. Which was hard -- she was cracking me up.

(a large version of this comic)

Noah is also doing a cartoon-a-day, and his are, of course, actually good, since he's an artist and all. Today he helps explain exactly how all these slugs are getting on bandaids.

Our pal Noah is having a commissioned art sale and his prices are, in my opinion, way too low. So get over there and take advantage of him!

I just found out today that FuzzyFriends Dan and Kate both have comics in the new book I Saw You...: Comics Inspired by Real-Life Missed Connections. I've only read their two pages, but those two are worth the whole book, so if any of the other comics are any good, bonus.

FuzzyCo heartily recommends betting on the 2009 Tournament of Books. (But for the kids, you know, not for all the fabulous prizes.)

Hey, Gapers Block interviewed JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound on the occasion of their debut album and used one of my photos to illustrate it.

The album release party is next weekend at the Empty Bottle, but you can already buy the album on iTunes (and doing so via that link gets me a small kickback).

JJ has posted the most awesomely horrific valentines. There's more than just the one above -- go look!

Man, who wouldn't want to date Philip? I mean, unless you're already in a relationship or you like dating women or YOU'RE ALLERGIC TO AWESOME!

I think I twittered this but didn't blog it -- my brother wrote an iPhone app to help you learn Spanish and you can go download it and make him rich (or, at least, have that developer hire him again or something).

We're off to ring in the New Year with a little Don't Spit the Water at Chucklebowl. I've just gotten word that the thing is completely sold out, so if you don't already have tickets, I'll be seeing you in 2009.

Erica, as Cutie Bumblesnatch, was on the WGN Morning News this morning to promote Don't Spit the Water's appearance at the New Year's Eve Chucklebowl:

Erica models her new Prez shirt designed by Eric Rewitzer.

(Shirt discovered via BoingBoing.)

I know nobody asked, but here's my positions on a couple candidates and referendii in this fast-upcoming election. As always, I encourage you to research the issues that matter to you. And then, you know, vote the way I tell you.

National

Obama-Biden. Please? I mean, really, do I need to go through all the reasons why I support the Irish nerd?

Illinois

The Illinois Constitution requires that every 20 years we have to vote whether to have a constitutional convention to revise our state constitution, and 2008 is one of those years. This is a tricky issue -- is there enough benefit to possibly be had to justify the risk of the changes that could occur? At this time in Illinois' history, I'm going to go with the League of Women Voters of Illinois and vote No to a constitutional convention.

Every election in Illinois we get to vote whether to retain our judges. You can educate yourself about all the judges and there are certainly a few judges that I would recommend you vote No on. But just between you and me I'm going for simplicity and voting No on all the judges. I'm not worried that my vote, nor even yours if you follow my example, are going to vote out a good judge. The stats show that judges are overwhelming retained, by large margins. And I have this odd idea that even a good judge can benefit from noticing that a few people voted not to retain them. The job they do is so crazy-important that a moment of soul-searching every couple years is certainly not too much to ask.

And heck, since I'm on a roll, why not talk about some places I don't even live:

California

Californians, please vote No on Proposition 8. I love being married to the person I love, and I think everyone should have the right to marry the person they love, no matter the gender of that person. If you'd like the perspective of someone who actually lives in your state, I refer you to the earnestness of Jesse Thorn.

Ottawa County, Michigan

Somehow I ended up on the New Holland Brewing mailing list and this week they sent me an email about an election proposal to allow the sale of beer of Sundays. We can already buy all the liquor we want (and more!) in Illinois on Sundays, so it took me a moment of research to discover that they were referring to an issue in Ottawa County, Michigan. So, New Holland needs to work on targeting their mailings a little better. But sure, heck, the citizens of Ottawa County deserve the right to purchase a refreshing beverage any day of the week as much as the rest of us. Please note that this one of those confusingly worded ballots -- if you want to vote Yes to Sundays then you need to vote No on the ballot.

Bruce Campbell is touring in support of his new movie, My Name is Bruce, and he (and the movie) will be at the Landmark Century on the weekend of November 28. Erica and I have tickets to the Sunday, Nov. 30, 7:30 show if anybody wants to join us. Just $10! Bruce Campbell!

If you happen to be in Tel Aviv over the next month, you can see my Young Me, Now Me diptych in a gallery show called 'wideness length' at Darom (Matalon 82). It's a group show and my photos and other YMNM entries will be 'by' Ze Frank (as the conceiver of YMNM). The show opens Oct 16 and runs through Nov 13.

Hey, if you live in Chicago you have until October 7 to make sure that you're registered for the upcoming elections. Go to the Chicago Board of Elections website and you can check your registration. If you need to update your address or register, there's a form you can print out and then mail in.

If you live anywhere else, the Obama campaign has an easy website to register to vote. (You don't have to vote for him in the election*, you can just use the form.)

* But you should.

Not to get all indier than thou on you, but I've been a R. Buzzy fan since Phil and Matt's last band (Honest Engine). So it's with a heavy heart that I pass along the news that R. Buzzy will be playing their last gig on September 4 at The Hideout.

The Hideout
1354 W. Wabansia
Chicago, IL 60622
www.hideoutchicago.com

Thursday September 4th $8 cover
With Juffage and Lacona
They go on at 9:30pm

CRAFT magazine is now selling Stacey's finger puppet kits. You can also purchase assembled finger- and hand-puppets (semi-)directly from her through Etsy or just gaze upon photo after photo of cute-as-a-button puppets on her Flickr stream. And you'll be able to see her puppeteering work on a certain music video just as soon as the freakin' label gets around to posting it.

There are just under two weeks left to get in your application to be a contestant on Impress These Apes 3. If you're any sort of actor, comedian, performer, etc. I'd strongly encourage you to apply. Erica and I were contestants on the first two seasons of the show (respectively) and we both found it to be one of the most challenging and most rewarding eight weeks of our lives. I mean, I learned to play the guitar and wrote a song! So, c'mon, get on the stick and get that application in! Chop, chop!

Erica and some other scoundrels were on the WGN Morning News this morning to promote Don't Spit the Water. I'll have video of their actual appearance up tonight, but for now we've got this clip, which is the result of the question "do you guys want to stick around for Senior Soul Train?" I'm not sure how any red-blooded performer could answer "no" to that question.

Update: And here's the DSTW segment.

Metromix is having their now-annual Rock 'n' Vote show -- 4 bands out of the 10 finalists will perform a free show at the Double Door. And FuzzyCo friend Ben Taylor's band JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound is in the running.

Go here, listen to some sample songs, and then vote for JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound (the voting is on the upper right of the page and it's a simple poll -- no registration required or anything).

(And who took that awesome photo of the band? Oh yeah, it was me!)

It's an Apelad shirt, it's a video game shirt, it's $10 (at least, it is today). How have you not bought it already? Shoo!

Apelad has a new site, onomatopedia (Onomatopoeia + Encyclopedia), where you supply an onomatopoeic word (and $20) and receive an original 4x6" drawing in the mail. Did I commission this impolite word? Maaaaybe. (Yes.)

I know you don't trust me, but the Onion AVClub gave the new Laugh-Out-Loud Cats book an A.

Through some inexplicable alchemy, cartoonist Adam Koford has turned seemingly every annoying Internet meme—from hobo worship to "I see what you did there"—into something whimsical and charming in Meet The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, a collection of single-panel cartoons packaged to look like a old 1973 Dell paperback.

The other video project I knocked out over the weekend was an editing job for the Neo-Futurists. I was handed about 90 minutes of footage of Contraption rehearsals and a loose script and I edited together this one minute trailer for the play.

To preemptively answer a question that's come up a couple of times, I deliberately didn't use any 'scratches' or 'jittery film' effects for two reasons. First, since I knew that the target venue here was YouTube, I wanted to keep the image as clean as possible -- YouTube's video compression already makes video plenty ugly-looking. And second, it almost feels like a cliche at this point. I know it's an accurate cliche for silent films, but it still feels over-used.

As with so many of my video projects, I'm really indebted to the multitude of musicians all over the world who have freely shared their music under Creative Commons (or other) licenses so that a very non-musical fellow such as myself can score his films. The delightful piano music in this trailer is a piece called Mister Exposition by Kevin MacLeod.

Chicago director, producer, raconteur, and all-around swell fellow Don Hall has the same birthday as I do. He also has a wonderful (and crazy) wife. You may remember that last year she organized a bunch of Don's friends to wake him up at 6 am by singing Happy Birthday to him while gathered creepily around his bed. This year she set up a blog called "Don Hall is a Horse's Ass" and solicited posts from all of his friends. Here's my and Erica's contributions.

Are you tired of the whole Pirate vs Ninja thing? So are they...

Go vote for this Apelad t-shirt! (Voting is almost over, so quick-quick!)

I was the camera guy who knows how to set the exposure.

More details from Steve.

Let's talk about Child's Play for a second. Back in 2003 the guys from the mostly-videogame-oriented webcomic Penny Arcade got mad at a newspaper columnist who was recycling the too-easy trope "violent videogames are training children to kill." But instead of just spluttering to the choir on their website, they decided to put their money, and action, where their mouth was and organized a donation of videogames and toys to a Seattle children's hospital. That first year they raised about $150,000 in toys and cash for a single hospital. This year they're on their way to a goal of $750,000 for 40 different children's hospitals around the world. Likely there is one near you.

For your holiday viewing pleasure (seriously, gather the whole family around the computer), various spits from the Don't Spit the Water! performance on November 10, 2007 at the Metropolis Arts Center in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

(Bonus video of Ken Barnard as Dancemaster John Rambo Rocketpant over at the Blewt! blog.)

Apelad has a design up at Threadless. Go score it some 5s, please.

Blewt (producers of Don't Spit the Water, Impress These Apes, etc., etc.) are holding a fundraiser -- for a mere $20 you can have the Don't Spit the Water character of your choice* record a special video greeting for your family, loved ones, boss, arch-nemesis, etc., etc. You get to pick what the character says, does, and so on, we record it, and it's delivered to the recipient on January 1, 2008. Happy New Year!

* And yes, that includes both Cutie Bumblesnatch (Erica) and Dr. Baron Ludwig von Evilschlager (me).

Are you tired of trying to decide which is coolest: pirates or ninjas or robots or apes or hobos or zombies? Well, stress no more -- this single shirt from Apelad (and shirt.woot) has got you covered! Because it's woot, it's $10 today and then $15 after that, until it gets cut from the catalog in some complicated process. Best to just jump on the band wagon immediately. Jump, I tell you, jump!

Kate has an illustration in an alphabetical group show at the Chesterton Art Center in Chesterton, Indiana and you can bid to purchase her contribution (seen above) through some complicated mechanism called "going there" or "calling".

And in the same vein, Adam "Apelad" Koford has (had?) a deal where for $20 you could get an original monkey illustration to your specifications. Above is the Monkey Midget Busdriver. Monkeys are, already, smaller than the average busdriver, but I think he's even smaller than that. $20 can also get you an original Laugh Out Loud Cat cartoon, and if that's not a great deal, I don't know what is.

We got this sometime ago, but I don't think I've shared it yet: Joe Alterio has a project called Robots and Monsters: A Charitable Menagerie. You make a donation to a charity and then specify a robot or monster (or robot monster) with three words and you get an original drawing. Above is a 'Fuzzy' 'Midget' 'Busdriver'. It's Team Gerdes in a single drawing!

I dress up like a banana and lose a comedy competition. Foresman gets a Vanilla Ice haircut and wins a karaoke contest. I'm not sure life is fair.

Chicago Tribune today:

Before 'Dada,' check your logic with the donkey
By Kerry Reid

Mark Twain's author's note for "Huckleberry Finn" famously noted warned: "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."

A similar advisory is in order for viewers of WNEP's "Soiree Dada: Blinde Esel Hopse (Blind Donkey Hopscotch)," which has turned the usually austere Chicago Cultural Center studio theater into a funhouse of dystopia. A cross between the Mad Hatter's tea party and a performance art festival performed by feral children, the ensemble of white-faced tricksters slips the occasional shiv of social commentary in between the ribs of the audience. But don't expect any easily digested bromides. If even low-level audience participation gives you hives, don't go.

At the same time, director Don Hall has orchestrated the piece so that the most invasive moments stay on the side of good-natured buffoonery. It's hard to find anything truly offensive in the accusation "You do not know the first eleven digits of pi." Most of the sharpest aphorisms come courtesy of DADA Dabo (Jen Ellison), who is the ringmaster of this anti-art circus. Audience members are seated throughout the playing area, which is divided between the "French" and "German" dadaists. A series of interactions, sketches, songs, and confrontations among the Dadas suggests that the primal urge for instant gratification is the bedrock of most human endeavor, and that most people will do as they're told by an authority figure. (Here, audience members took aim at the Dadas in a game called "Shoot the Freaks.")

To ding a show like this for self-indulgence would be silly, but the interactivity and the large cast add up to a thematically looser experience than the last WNEP Dada show I saw (2005's "Soiree Dada: Neue Weltaffen"), which seemed to cut a little deeper along sociopolitical lines. But then again, as we are reminded by the end, "Dada is a telephone that keeps going off at the worst possible time." Adventurous patrons should take the call.

Through Oct. 14 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph St.; $15-$20 at 312-742-8497.

Look what I found when I was out shopping for my banana costume! Every kid wants to be a real, live penguin, just like Dan. And speaking of Jumbles, you can see him other Don't Spit the Water comedians this Saturday, but not at the Playground -- Don't Spit the Water has moved to the Metropolis in Arlington Heights for the next two months. Erica (that is, Cutie Bumblesnatch) will be doing the last three shows, after Soiree DADA has closed.

Don't squint your eyes trying to read this -- I posted the text of the review last week. I just finally got a copy into the scanner and wanted to show off another picture of my wife.

From this week's Time Out (with with another large photo by Jim Newberry (the print edition miscredited Michael Brownlee, who has certainly taken many nice DADA pictures, but not these)):

Soiree DADA: Blinde Esel Hopse WNEP Theater at Chicago Cultural Center (see Fringe & storefront). Dir. Don Hall. With ensemble cast.

DADA DAY CAMP The white-faced cast of Soiree creates a little Duchamp of horrors.

FOUR STARS

One of WNEP's clownlike Dada creatures is in the middle of an emotional monologue when suddenly his fellows surround him, making noise, shouting, singing and generally drowning him out. The storyteller soldiers on through the distraction until he can't take it anymore, shouting, "I am having a poignant moment here!"

Good luck with that, we think. There's poignancy in the latest Soiree DADA; it's just not in Hallmark-card form. These Dadaists will move you, but they're not going to be mushy about it.

The latest edition of WNEP's nonsense cabaret, sprung from the confines of its shoeboxlike former spaces, ups the ante for its stay at the Cultural Center with a cast of 11 white-faced, questionably accented Dadaists, combining the purposely irrational, logic-rejecting anti-aesthetics of Dada practitioners Tristan Tzara and George Grosz with elements of vaudeville (unlike the Dadaists of old, this group isn't averse to actually entertaining us).

Hall and his cast take us on one daft roller-coaster ride, careening from the sublimely silly (the petulant Dadaists fight over their belongings like toddlers) to that aforementioned prickly poignancy—witness Jen Ellison's aggressive, desperately powerful, climactic counting piece. Those allergic to audience participation should find other plans, but a little harmless "in your face" is a small price to pay for some darn good "in your brain."

—Kris Vire

And from last week's Newcity:

Soiree DADA: Blinde Esel Hopse (Stage » Comedy » Improv/Revues)

Chaos is the language of choice in WNEP’s Dada revue, and while the Dadaists may talk a good game about the anti-aesthetics of their cause, there is an aesthetic nonetheless. Even a fuck-the-rules attitude can achieve beauty. But how deep does it go? In white face and black lips, the Dada performers here engage in feverous activity--the show plays out like a poetry slam in a blender--and if the goal is simply to entertain, it succeeds on most fronts. The seating options are deliberately kooky--floor pillows, bistro tables or a communal highchair that looked less than comfy. Where this reanimation of Dada fails, for me at least, is intellectually. The show is performed at you and bounces back to the performers--you walk out not rattled so much as mildly amused. I’m all for non-stop nonsense. "Are you afraid of the ding dong and the ping ping?" Who knows, but I like the way it sounds. But too often gibberish becomes white noise. The strongest elements of the show involve Jen Ellison as the ring leader, Dada Dabo. With her short blonde hair slicked back, she looks a little like Julie Andrews in "Victor Victoria," but her manner is officious and sadistic, as she twirls her pinky ring and surveys the crowd with a satisfied stare. She is an evil mastermind with a brusque German accent. And yet she is a reassuring presence, an ogre with a spring in her step. "If I were to fondle your ass, would you be offended?" she asks an audience member, who is then instructed: "Stand up, turn around and bend over." No joke. "Are you offended now?" she taunts as her hand inches closer to said ass. "Howaboutnow, howaboutnow, howaboutnow?" Ellison finds the weird in her comedy to great effect. "I must say, I am impressed with the frivolous way your treat your body," she concludes. Of all the Dadaists, Ellison’s is the most defined of the lot, and she alone rattles a few cages with her carefully modulated performance.

- Nina Metz

Time Out Chicago recommends Soiree DADA as one of five shows to see at a matinee (there's a whole thing going on about 'getting high' because that was the theme of the issue. Yeah, I don't get it either.)

#4 Soiree DADA

As long as you’re not the paranoid type, check out this WNEP play. Just be careful—those white-faced DADA dudes can stare right into your soul.

Hugo Ball, whose Cabaret Voltaire birthed Dada during World War I, described it as "both buffoonery and a requiem mass." The latest in WNEP Theater's "Soiree Dada" series, whose subtitle means "Blind Donkey Hopscotch," gets that. Performed by nine clowns in whiteface and tramp costumes, the piece's anarchic games and strangely mesmerizing nonsense poems are ingeniously buffoonish while its half-giddy, half-terrified insistence on the cruel emptiness at the center of things becomes a kind of merry dirge. The original dadaists, with their oft-professed distain for the artistic past, might have scorned the idea of attempting to re-create the spirit of a 90-year-old experiment, but WNEP's well-crafted chaos proves that Dada retains its power to tickle and prod.

P.S. That Reader review (Critic's Choice!) is accompanied by another great big picture of DADA Flutter (and others) by Jim Newberry:

I linked to that Soiree DADA preview by Nina Metz yesterday, but I had been reading it online and didn't realize that the article was a) on the front page of the Friday entertainment section and b) accompanied by a huuuge photo of the DADAs, including DADA Flutter (that is, Erica).

The show was quite incredible. Each of the DADAs has a seating area that they control and I sat in a sort of a box with DADA Rusty Cluster -- there was room for exactly me and him. I'll have to go back to actually see all of the show, but just being in the box for 90 minutes was quite an experience.

Tonight... we DADA.

Erica's DADA show opens tonight and I can't wait to see it -- I've heard so many bits and pieces that sound, by turn, hilarious and touching and terrifying and nonsensical, that I'm curious how they all fit together. Some bits and pieces: Nina Metz wrote a preview for the Tribiune, Michael Brownlee took photos during a rehearsal, I took photos when the DADAs went out in public, and Don has written a ton of stuff about the show.

Alton Brown's new Food Network show, Feasting on Asphalt 2, has him traveling up the Mississippi River, sampling road food along the way. The show stopped in Vicksburg, Mississippi in episode 2 but only showed their visit to the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum (where Coke was first bottled). But in episode 5 this Highway 61 Coffeehouse coffee mug showed up as Alton taste-tested Civil War reenactment coffees, outside of Monroe City, Missouri.

Team Gerdes fave Steve Delahoyde made a commercial for Don't Spit the Water. There's a quick glimpse of Cutie Bumblesnatch in there, if you're quick at glimpsing.

My brother would like to share you with you his hard-won Spanish language tidbits from his life in Buenos Aires.

Interviewed Michael Ian Black.

(I owe many thanks to Erica who transcribed the interview so that I wouldn't have to listen to the sound of my own voice.)

You might remember Jin Kim as "one of the zombies in that FuzzyCo short" or "the guy who fights Death in that other FuzzyCo short" but now he's a "Hollywood voice" in a high-profile video game. Jin was already the voice of Lui Kang in Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, but this puts Jin's name in the same article (and game) as Chow Yun Fat.

SFW*:

NSFWITHNSOH**:

* Safe For Work
* Not Safe For Work If They Have No Sense Of Humor

(via Superpunk and Don Hall)

How's this for a lucky break, I was planning on seeing a certain show anyway, but they asked me to come tape the show so they comped me and paid me (a little) to do it. Score! (Shh... don't tell them I was going to pay them to see the show.)

Look, I don't ask much of you, just that you see all my shows and love me and say I'm pretty and go here ...

and vote for Kate's design (Scroll down the middle or just search for "Let's Play"). Scoot!

It's rare that I simply present a music video here on FuzzyCo, but this new video from Feist just makes me gosh-darn happy. Happy Friday the 13th, y'all.

FuzzyCo fave Kate O'Leary has submitted a design to Threadless. If enough people vote that they like the design, she'll get paid and the shirt'll get made.

Congrats to my awesome wife, who has made the cast of WNEP's latest Soireé DADA show.

You know, Tyler still dreams about Randy.

(via Hud Callahan)

Don't Spit the Water will be doing their 100th show tomorrow tonight (I didn't realize it was after midnight), which is quite a milestone. They even got mentioned on the Comedy Central blog. Erica was Cutie Bumblesnatch for that first show and she'll be Cutie Bumblesnatch tomorrow for the 100th -- she's thinking of pulling out some of those ur-bits for the show. (Me, I'll be at Rogue 8 -- but I'll be meeting up with everyone after the show for some well-deserved drinks.)

You loved them at our wedding, you'll love them playing stuff off their upcoming record at Hideout (1354 W Wabansia) next Thursday, March 15.

Well, Erica did not win Impress These Apes, but she came in second and I'm super proud of her. And thanks to Ben Taylor for joining Erica for her oh-so-Reid finale piece (doesn't it almost look like they'd practiced or something?).

It's fun to listen to the crowd during Erica's thing and hear when people 'get' it. A lot of people figured it out at shangaroo kit. Justin Kaufmann, guest judge and professional comedian, never got it. Which might be the funniest of all.

It's a sneak peak at the Intro Video for tonight's show. That's 8:00 pm at the Lakeshore Theater (3175 N Broadway).

It's been a long two month journey, but the finale of Impress These Apes is tonight. Among other embiggenings, the show has left the cozy comfort of the Playground for the grandeur of the Lakeshore Theater (3175 N Broadway). So if you've ever skipped coming to the show because I'd mentioned that the show was selling out, this is the week for you.

Erica's in third place, 9 points behind the leader, but the apes keep saying it's anyone's game. Erica's put together another very Erica Reid-y piece. Sometimes the judges have grooved on that (like the magic challenge), and sometimes they have not (like the film), so we'll see what they think tonight. Either way, I'm incredibly proud of her for completing all seven challenges so far. Good luck, sweetheart.

After the jump I've collected all of the videos of Erica's first seven weeks of Impress These Apes:

Erica's now in a very close third place, but what the numbers don't show is how proud she is of the very Erica Reid-y movie she made for this week's challenge. And how grateful she was that both Tim Nordwind and Mike Doughty came through to help her get the "use a celebrity" bonus points.

Week 6 of Impress These Apes was, I think, one of the hardest for the contestants. The challenge was to create a piece of performance art in protest of something. Erica protested emo. It wasn't her strongest scoring week, but she's still in second place.

For next week the contestants have to produce a 3-and-a-half minute short comedy film. And the challenge for the final week was also announced. For the 8th and final week the show will be moving to the 300-seat Lakeshore Theater (3175 N Broadway) and the entirety of the challenge is "Impress These Apes".

This week's challenge at Impress These Apes was musical theater. The contestants were paired up and randomly assigned a song. They then had to write and perform an original scene that would lead into that song. And then perform the song. Everyone did a bang-up job, but Erica and Jim Fath's Christopher Columbus & Isabella scene leading into A Whole New World was awesome enough to keep her in the lead with a 5-point margin.

(That box Erica shows the audience says "Small Pox Blankets" and the book is "Exploring for Dummies".)

Erica remains in the lead of Impress These Apes after this week's magic acts, though by a narrower 3 point margin. To really appreciate Erica's calm delivery in the video above, you should know that she went up just after this mayhem.

Magic factoid: this weekend we were in Vegas and saw Penn & Teller and Erica was pulled up to be the lady in the knife throwing bit.

Next week on ITA: musical theater! The contestants have been paired up and have to write an original scene that leads into a randomly selected song -- Erica is paired with Jim Fath and they got A Whole New World.

Last night was the 3rd night of Impress These Apes and Erica is now in the lead, by 7 points! It was the dance challenge, and everyone had to choreograph and perform a three-minute dance to a random piece of music they had received at the end of last week's show. Erica got Once Bitten, Twice Shy -- and rocked it out.

Next week: magic!

I'm staying put here in lovely snow-bound Chicago.

It's a delightful time to be even peripherally involved with Blewt productions. In Chicago, Impress These Apes
has gotten a good review in the Reader and now an excellent write-up in Time Out, accompanied by two large photos taken by yours truly.

And in Charleston, SC, Don't Spit the Water made the cover* of the City Paper pull-out guide to the Charleston Comedy Festival and got a great write-up inside. If you're in the area, Erica will be playing Cutie Bumblesnatch and I'll be introducing Dr. Baron Ludvig von Evilschlager tonight and tomorrow night at Theater 99 (280 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC).

* Let's not tell them that Earl LaRue, as played by Robert Buscemi, won't actually be at the festival.

If you weren't at Impress These Apes last night, you missed a great night of standup. Erica surged ahead to tie for 2nd place with her awesome set. Her last joke fits in all the bonus points, which is why it doesn't make a lot of sense. Next week: dance!

Reader Review: Impress These Apes! (Recommended)

In Blewt! Productions' talent show, the face of the human race depends on eight contestants impressing three apes from the future whose intelligence has increased to the level of, well, amateur comedians. Each week the same eight performers compete in a different category, like music or stand-up. There's a silly backstory to this lively show, anchored by loony host (and local stand-up) Jared Logan, who convincingly behaves as though he's missing a frontal lobe. But there's also real stakes: the producers held an open audition, and after eight weeks the winning contestant gets $250. A volatile mix of the staged and the sincere, Impress These Apes delivers the best kind of inconsistancy; can't-look-away failure and spontaneous charm. It's American Idol meets lowbrow comedy. -- Ryan Hubbard

I yammer on a lot about Kate, but Dan's in Japan, too. And now he's got the website to prove it.

I dunno, maybe you just don't like video and you'd prefer to see still photos. I can't read your mind.

After Week 1 of Impress These Apes, Erica's in an incredibly tight 4th place (only 2 points behind the leader). This week's challenge (which you can see above) was to write a song introducing yourself, with bonus points for rhyming "apes", "mankind", and "earthquakes". Next week, the contestants have to do 3 minutes of stand-up.

Erica got called in as a last minute replacement for Impress These Apes -- a comedy talent show run by hyper-intelligent apes who might want to destroy mankind with their earthquake machine. The contestants get bonus points for all sorts of things (one contestant already has 5 bonus points for getting the most views of his audition video on YouTube) including selling a pair of designated tickets for each show. So, I have two tickets to every Impress These Apes show* for the next 8 weeks. If you'd like to accompany me to a show, just let me know.

* Monday nights at 8 pm at The Playground (3209 N Halsted).

As Kate says, "just in time for Valentine's Day", she's made the above image into notecards available in her CafePress store. And what says "I love you" more than a monkey farting hearts? Nothing, that's what.

Time Out Chicago did a year-end round-up of their "favorite jokes" (mostly from stand-ups) and Pastor of Muppets made the cut (from before I was in the group, of course).

Noah did actually get his Christmas podcast up before Christmas, I'm the one who was slow to tell you about it -- but it makes a delightful Boxing Day treat as well. You might recognize Santa and Mrs. Claus in the Improv Interview...

For a limited time, The Areas of My Expertise audiobook, read by the author, is free on iTunes. You need to get it. Trust me.

(via Boing Boing)

Have I mentioned lately that Robert Buscemi is one of my favorite comedians?

(via Adam Witt)

Of course, so is Faelyn.

My godson is not just a blogger, he's a video-blogger.

Time Out Chicago did a an article on Schadenfreude and their continuing success (and the last Rent Party for the time-being) and name checked Rine-Stone, who's been working as their writing assistant, like a mazillion times.

In support of that charity I mentioned a few weeks ago, Child's Play, a group of independent Mac software developer are donating all of the sales of their products today* to Child's Play. There's some great software on the list including iRooster, Delicious Library, everything from Flying Meat, and Rolling Credits.

*Today only! Sorry I'm posting so late! Go! Buy!

Kate has started a CafePress store with, at the moment, a grand two items: super-cute acorn postcards and a super-cute "Toast Yaaay!" tshirt.

Two things I think are cool are video games and children (they are, you know, our future). So I whole-heartedly endorse Child's Play, the charity started by the guys from Penny Arcade, which gets donations of toys, games, books and cash to sick kids in children's hospitals around the world. You can make a straight donation, you can buy toys or games directly from Amazon and have them shipped straight to a hospital, you participate in an event, or you can even buy a PS3.

A few months ago, Noah made a music video, starring puppets (some custom, a few you might recognize from elsewhere) for a Barenaked Ladies contest. The finalists have all been combined into the above video and Noah is, of course, one of them. Hooray!

We've never discussed it, but I have the feeling that my brother-in-law^2* and I might be at rather different points on the political spectrum. But I agree wholeheartedly with his wise words about the upcoming election:

Next Tuesday, please go out and vote. But, before you do, make sure that you educate yourself about the candidates and their stances on the issues that are important to you. Visit the candidates' websites, read recaps of their debates, etc. Don't vote for someone based on public opinion or because they have a cool name. Vote for someone because you feel that they are the best candidate to make positive decisions that will affect your life, and the lives of those close to you.

*My wife's brother's wife's brother.

A whole bunch of our friends (watch for Phillip Mottaz as the most cheerfulest prisoner ever) made a short film that's in a contest at JibJab. Vote for So You Want To Be a Cop and they could win a majillion dollars* and a pony**.

* $10,000.
** no pony.

Erica's friend Erica (one of the wedding pirates) has just been cast in the New York cast of the Neo-Futurist's Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. We're super jazzed for her and can't wait to get out to NYC to see her in the show.

Kate leaves for Japan tomorrow. Last night she had a few friends over to the Ten Cat for drinks and telling the same three pieces of information over and over (Beatrice Cat is at her parents, she's happy she quit her job, she'll be working on freelance illustration). If, like me, you can't get enough Kate, you'll want to bookmark:

Arsonist Cow
KateO's Photos
Kate's Sketchbook

Congratulations to Chuck and Sara.

Not that the residents of Texas are looking to FuzzyCo for advice on voting, but I'm apologizing for my earlier position and renouncing any support of Kinky Friedman. Chris Bell for Governor of Texas, please.

My friend Zabeth Russell has all of this year's sexiest halloween costumes.

The RedEye's cover story today is about YouTube and Steve was interviewed about all the videos he puts up on YouTube, including the Clapkees (pictured above).

"Hey Fuzzy, I'd like to see some pictures of your goddaughter, and possibly be enticed to purchase some crafts created by your friend Maria."

That's a weird thing to ask for, imaginary corespondent, but man, am I on it for you, or what?

Everything I've ever read from John M. Ford was well worth reading and I'm very selfishly sad that there will be no more writings because there is no more John M. Ford. His novels are intricate and delightful things and he could just toss off these note-perfect poems in three styles at once and tell me that The Declaration of Unity is not one of the most beautiful wedding ceremonies you've ever read. Oh, poop to death.

A few years ago, Erica did a photoshoot with world-famous photographer Victor Skrebneski. At that time, Skrebneski did not have a website. Now, not only does he have a site, but Erica's photo is one of the photos in his site's splash page animation.

Today's Cat and Girl took me aback with its awesomeness. (If you're confused...)

Demetri Martin's new standup album, These Are Jokes, comes out September 26. It was recorded live at some shows at the Lakeshore Theater here in Chicago and Erica and I were there for one of them. So that's our laughs, on some of the tracks. And laugh we did, because he is funny. Dead Frog has a preview track, which features Will Forte on scat assist (singing, not animal poop).

My brother is selling his gorgeous motorcycle. Go snap it up.

500 Clown's 500 Clown Macbeth and 500 Clown Frankenstein will be at Steppenwolf in the summer of 2007.

By marriage, squared*, I am now related to a Apple Design Award winner. Neato, and congrats to Ben.

My friend and fellow Crazy Monkeys-alum Alex Aschinger has made it to the top 50 (out of thousands of entries) of the New York Television Festival Pitch Contest. Alex begs, "On Thursday the 24th go to http://tv.msn.com/nytvf/contest and vote for Scout's Honor by Alex and Chris. Voting goes from midnight to midnight and the top two from each day go to New York to pitch their show live for chance to make their pilot or talk to and meet TV peeps." Alex also has a short film in the Valley Film Fest in September.

Holy McBadNewsCity! Dan Izzo's rent got doubled by his insane landlord and so the Improv Inferno will be closing on the weekend of September 10. There will be special shows all that weekend. If you live anywhere close, please stop by and spend a few dollars while you still can -- Dan and Trish's tiny, hungry baby will thank you.

Barenaked Ladies (the Canadian band) are having an air guitar contest on YouTube, asking fans to make videos of themselves playing air guitar to their new song Wind It Up which features a guest guitar solo by Kim Mitchell. Noah made an all-puppet video, including a special Kim Mitchell-puppet doing the air guitar part to his own solo. Genius. If he doesn't win, there is no justice.

* Ben is Erica's brother's wife's brother.

Metromix TV came out to Don't Spit the Water last weekend for the one year anniversary of the open run. I think they did a good job capturing the feel of the show and you can watch Erica do her makes-even-less-sense-out-of-context comedy here (click on the link labeled Don't Spit the Water). (Grr... it doesn't work on Macs, even though I do have the Windows Media Player plug-in installed.)

The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority (aka Asheville [NC]: any way you like it) is holding a contest to design their new TV ad. The prize is $1,000 and a trip (to Asheville, of course). I'm sure they're expecting to get a lot of submissions like this one by "Paul E." But Steve Delahoyde and his film-making partner Waki submitted this and this and this and this and this.

I'd go anywhere that squirrel told me to go.

(Via Adam Witt)

Dan and Trish had a boy!

Hey, I've been coaching this improv group called Sass Patrol for, god, months now. Months! And they haven't gotten tired of the rambling I call "notes" yet. They perform for the first time tonight at The Playground (3209 N Halsted). Yeah, that's right, Tuesday night, mother f-ers! Please come cheer on Ryan Gilmour, Tyler Lansdown, Kristen Studard, and Chrissy Swinko. (Charlie Carroll has some deadly illness, so he won't be gracing the stage.)

Dan has designed a shirt and entered it into the ongoing Threadless design competition. Do click on the shirt-glimpse above and vote on it. I happen to think it is a delightful design.

After we recovered from a coma-inducing Easter potluck, Erica and I followed our host Jeff Gandy to see the Fowler Family Radio Hour. The FFRH purports to be a radio show broadcast from the small town of Henley in an unspecified Southern state. It's a loose variety show featuring commercials, songs, dance, trivia games, guest bands, and the very dysfunctional antics of the Fowler family. Charming and hilarious stuff.

The show just finished a run at the Theatre Building and now moves to the Donny's Skybox Theatre for a month of Sundays and then to Second City's Unhinged series on Wednesdays.

My friend Kyle has starting blogging. You may remember Kyle from such stories as "Kyle made a t-shirt" and "Kyle tells you TV".

Threadless is having one of their periodic $10 sales, so if you want to look more like me for cheaper, go get some.

(Full disclosure: if you buy something from Threadless by clicking on that link there, I get a kick-back. So that I can buy more Threadless shirts. The madness never ends!)

My friend George Eckart was interviewed by Chicagoist about his short animated films.

Smarty pants, indeed.

Roy: Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes. No, there you go, I just heard it come on. No, that's the music you hear when it comes on. No, that's the music you hear when... I'm sorry, are you from the past?

The favorite new sitcom around the office is The IT Crowd, a British sitcom from the creators of Father Ted about a small IT department. (Hey Fuzzy, you don't live in Britain, how are you watching this show? Oh, there are ways.)

Hi-larious stuff, even if you're not a super geek. (Though, don't worry if you are a super geek -- real geeks were involved.)

And now my friend Kyle has made a T-shirt inspired by one of his favorite lines from the show. Available in geek-friendly black as well.

Update: BoingBoing linked to the shirts and Cory Doctorow called them "amazing fan-tees".

One of my favorite artists, El Rey Del Art, has been blogging for a year.

I know that some of the Dido cast are that breed of actors who don't like to read reviews while the show is in progress (if ever) and that's perfectly understandable. So I'm hiding the rest of this post past the jump...

Over the last couple of months you might have heard me or Erica talk about the "real play, with words you have to memorize" that she's been rehearsing for. Well, tonight is the opening night of Camenae Ensemble Theatre Company's production of Dido, Queen of Carthage by Christopher Marlowe.

I went to the tech and dress rehearsals over the last two nights to take publicity photos and I have to say that I was really impressed. I was at the first read-through of the play and, I have to admit, at that time I kinda thought, "oh great, 16th Century language about tragic figures from 9th Century BC. Yawn-town." But Sara's direction and the fine cast have really brought this play to life. And the lush costumes really pop on the simple stage, which made it easy to take beyutiful pictures.

And speaking of those pictures, I tried a little directed-publicity experiment. When I was shooting, I didn't just focus on the principals, but I got photos of everyone. So last night I made the offer that if anyone had a blog or LiveJournal or whathaveyou, I would send them a URL of a photo of their own self that they could post to help publicize the show. I was expecting 2 or 3 people to take me up on the offer. Twelve cast members came forward and gave me their emails. A number of them have posted pictures, and I see from perusing their blogs that they were already, of course, plugging the show, but every little bit helps and it was easy enough to crank out 12 web-quality photos while watching Project Runway last night.

The Dido cast blogs:

bdar
birchfire
dancing blue
duck2ducks
Erica Reid
hssst
miss sherri
misterholt
xandra_lj

Over Christmas my soon-to-be brother-in-law Christopher entrusted me with the Quark file of his comic masterpiece 5 Days to Get There. Now, a mere month-and-change later I've finally got the dang thing up in a navigable form. Go read the back story and then... behold!

It's my birthday this weekend! And we moved! And we got engaged! So we're having a party on Saturday, from 7 'til late. You're invited, my internet friend -- if you know where I used to live, it's half a block south. If you don't know where we live, shoot me an email.

Rather than repeat myself, I'll point you to my rave about Valentine Victorious on the Chicago Metblog.

Hey, you know I'm a big fan of R. Buzzy and they're playing one of their all-too-infrequent gigs tomorrow at The Kinetic Playground (1113 W. Lawrence).

Out of my pain, art.

Dan and Victoria

Last night Erica and I drove out to Oak Brook to see Kristen in Once Upon a Mattress. She's been getting rave reviews, so we went to see what all the fuss was about.

If you like musical theater, and poofy-sleeved costunes, you'd do worse than to see one of the remaining 16 shows (over the next two weeks) of Once Upon a Mattress. (I hope that doesn't sound like faint praise. Kristen was funny, the rest of the cast was fine, the costumes were colorful. I'm just not a fan of the genre and I think there are things I'm not appreciating.)

And since it's Christmas, the Drury Lane lobby is 35% glitterier. 35% more than "very, very shiny".

And since we were in Oak Brook and got lost trying to get back on I-88 East, we stopped at the big McDonald's that's across the parking lot from McD's Corporate HQ. Fancy. I was hoping for some test-market items on the menu (McRibs Pizza! It could work!) but was disappointed in that. So we just had to rock out to the non-stop techno and relax in the comfy chairs by the fireplace. For reals.

Our friend Noah has made a 2006 Calendar featuring his Bezeus And Friends characters parodying fine art pieces. Some (most? all?) of his characters are based on his friends, or on characters that they play. Mouse Beard Fred, for example, is a character I created in a one-man improv show some time ago, and Weensie is based on Erica's Cutie Bumblesnatch. So the July image, above on the left, is Mouse Beard Fred (and a barely visible Weensie) replicating Goya's The Colossus (above, right). The whole thing took Noah longer than I think he thought it would, because he really painted all the paintings -- no easy Photoshop work here (hey Noah, why no easy Photoshop work?). So treat yourself to a hand-crafted calendar this year.

Oooh, and if you want to have a odd version of me-as-a-character peer out at you from your bumper or chest or coffee mug, why all of those are available, too.

My favorite t-shirt company, Threadless, is having one of their periodic $10 sales. I'm an L and Erica's a ladies' M if you're stumped for Christmas present ideas for us.

Tonight's Belmont Burlesque Revue features a new dance number choreographed by Miss Erica Reid.

Don't Spit the Water is Time Out New York's Critic's Pick for Comedy this Friday night.

Bill Watterson answers some fan questions on the occasion of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

Q: What led you to resist merchandising Calvin and Hobbes?

A: For starters, I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo. . .

(via Bookslut)

Just trying to close some open windows, as they say. Gapers Block did a profile of FuzzyCo friend and burlesque dancer/choregrapher Michelle "Toots" L'Amour.

Good job, Threadless.

Well, I wish I lived there, just so I could vote for Kinky Friedman for Governor.

Erica and I got our "Regrowth" fund-raising shirts from Threadless.

Sounds dirty, but it's all perfectly innocent. Steev has posted a video clip of Cutie Bumblesnatch's (and Sasha and the Noob and Kelly Paynes) appearance on the Nude Hippo: Your Chicago Show on his videos page.

Visiting us is enough to drive a man to blog: Chirping Octopus (aka Ben Waldie).

IGN has reviewed Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and given it a 8/10. Not bad.

We have a lot of Threadless t-shirts at FuzzyCo HQ, but this is the coooooolest ever. For every $10 Regrowth: Katrina tshirt that they sell, they're going to give $20 to the Red Cross (up to $50,000). As I write this, they're on a second printing of the shirts and are up to $34,540. (And which also means you should likely be patient as they deal with 2000 orders in one day.)

Update: They're over $50,000, which means that from now on it's just the $10 per shirt going to the Red Cross. Which is still excellent. As I write this, they're up to $76,390.00, which, by my quick calculation, means 5139 t-shirts. Good job, Threadless.

Update: So close! They've decided to cap it at $100,000 (7500 shirts) and they're at $93,240 right now. Why don't you just click on over and order the last 676 shirts?

Erica's brother Christopher has started a blog.

Cutie Bumblesnatch, along with the rest of the Don't Spit the Water crew, will be on the Nude Hippo: Your Chicago Show tonight at 7 PM, on cable channel 25 in the Chicagoland area.

If you only go to one comedy show this weekend, it should probably be one of the Laughing Matters: Katrina Relief shows.

If you go to two shows, well then you should hit up the special Saturday midnight Don't Spit the Water show, which is a fund-raiser for their planned trip to New York to do a show at the UCB Theater. Rumor has it that a certain Ms. Cutie Bumblesnatch will be performing.

If you see three shows, my goodness that's a lot, and I'd be pleased as punch if the third show were the Neutrino Project tonight. We've only got four shows left. I think I'm going to wear a tux tonight. How could that not entice you?

I haven't seen a lot of shows lately that I'm not actually performing in. A delightful exception was The Monday Show that Erica and I went to see last Monday at the Playground. The show is an attempt to recreate the style of improv practiced by the Compass back in the 1950s, but not in a nostalgic or stylized way -- it's just a different approach to modern concerns.

At FuzzyCo HQ we have 11 tattoos between us, so you bet we're watching the two tattoo-shop reality shows on TV right now. And one sucks and one rocks.

Inked is set in a newish tattoo shop in a Las Vegas casino. It's got plenty of reality-TV manufactured drama ("if he doesn't sign this paper, I'm closing the shop down!"). Everyone in the shop has a weird floating-in-a-white-background intro video that plays every time the show references them. The customers seem to be a lot of drunk casino customers and the show doesn't dwell on them a lot. Boo town.

Miami Ink is set in a brand new shop in Miami. Out of all the "reality-TV" shows I've seen, it seems the closest to actual documentary work. We meet the tattoo artists and they touch on the actual techniques of tattooing. The customers and their reasons for getting tattooed are a huge part of the show, and they obviously do follow-up filming with the customers, both to see the healed tattoos and to fill in details of their lives. And there's very little forced drama -- in one episode, Darren flaked on an appointment and the editing and interviews were just barely hinting at the usual "trouble is coming" (on Orange County Choppers you'd have been waiting for Paul Sr. to blow his stack) when Darren showed up, apologized, and had the meeting with the client.

And they're really showing the range of reasons people get tattoos. In the first episode I saw there was a French tourist who got a flower tattooed on her foot "just because". And there was a father who got a tattoo of his two sons to memorialize their mother, who had died in the World Trade Center. Super light to super heavy. Super awesome. (oh man, and how much do I love that the Miami Ink shop is in a strip mall with just the word "Tattoo" in block letters over the door.)

Obviously, I'm not the only one who's made comparisons between the two shows: Slate's Dana Stevens weighs in on Miami Ink vs. Inked.

So, Neutrino Project: The Instant Movie finally opens in Chicago tonight. 9 PM at the Improv Kitchen. A lil' secret just for you, my web friends -- we're having an opening night thingy at the Town Hall Pub (3340 N Halsted) around 11 PM. Since the cast never gets to see the show while it's happening, we'll be watching the show on their TVs. I wrote up a list of reasons the show rocks.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Saturday night at 10:30, Erica will be co-hosting Don't Spit the Water as Patricia Montgomery, Sasha and the Noobs therapist. (The Noob is taking the week off.) I'll be helping Noah perform a bit that will make no sense to anyone not privy to a ton of complicated background.

And at midnight, Documentary South rides again. For the next two months, we'll be doing shows every other week at midnight during DSI's Afterparty slots at the Playground. Tomorrow night we're joined by a guest ensemble, The Glass Joe Project: Jim Buelow, Ben Duerr, Jason Kollar, Mike Kosinski, Jamie Landolfi, Tyler Lansdown, Nat Miller, Deanna Moffitt, Jeff Sevener, and Emily Tamblyn.

I couldn't any info on the web about Burrito Mexicano, and for symmetry I really needed somewhere to link the words "pork taco" so I'll have to write something. (It might make more sense if you read this.)

I know there are finer Mexican restaurants in the city -- make sure you try Riques sometime -- but Burrito Mexicano (936 W Addison) has a number of things going for it: it's very convenient - just steps from the Addison Red Line stop, it's open very late so I can stop by on my way home from a show (or drinking), the staff is friendly, the food is good, and the Horchata Grande is big and cheap and refreshing - especially after a hard show (or a lot of drinking).

I love supporting artists. The best way to support them, I suppose, is to buy their art, but I don't have the cash to be throwing around, say $900 for a painting by an artist I love. So I buy a lot of prints and such. And El Rey art.

Dorothy Gambrell, who draws the webcomic Cat and Girl, has a Donation Derby. If you donate $5 or more, she'll draw a picture of how she spent your money and share it with the world. Self-selection of donation amount and personalization. It's a Fuzzy-dream-come-true. The picture for my donation showed up today.

I'm not sure I could be any happier -- my donation got spent on beer and music and a geeky discussion of beer bottle sizes. Whee!

Don't Spit the Water was fun on Saturday night. Cutey had a new bit with a Ladicakes 'Stache pillow, so I was unneeded and sat in the front row taking pictures the whole show. Even though I was sitting right in the center, I never got spat on once. Otto von Otto was not so lucky.

originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

Well, it's cooled down (and by "cooled down" I mean to like 87°) (Oh, and about the heat -- Erica's mom called her from Mississippi today and was like, "it's 102° here" and Erica said, "yeah, it's 104° here" and her mom said, "no, it's in the 80s in Chicago" and Erica said, "mom, I'm in Chicago and it's over 100°" and her mom was like, "maybe with the heat index..." Why do we get no respect for our heat? Our heat kills people) to the point where I can think clearly enough to type. The only way I made it through the day was with liberal applications of Honey Bears.

The Honey Bear is a gift from our friends to the northwest. Half a glass of Leine's Honey Weiss and half of Leine's Berry Weiss. I'm not a fan of the Honey Weiss on its own, and the Berry Weiss is just a little too sweet (especially if you've been drinking lambics all winter) but together they're refreshing as all get out.

Leinenkugel will even sell you a special divided pitcher to make Honey Bears, but all you need is a couple of pint glasses. And a friend, because once you open those bottles, you've got enough to make two, and you might as well share.

Thanks, Wisconsin. (Can I pretend that I don't know that Miller owns Leine's now? I can? Cool.) (And Erica's mom called back later and admitted that she was wrong and that it was "104 !$@#ing degrees in Chicago today".)

My fellow CMBer Lauren has a design in Threadless' ongoing design competition. Go vote for her so she can fill her insatiable needs.

Steev has posted scans of the Time Out article about Don't Spit the Water. (If you're a Time Out subscriber, you can read the article here. But if you're a Time Out subscriber, you have the magazine at home.)

The good news is that the only comedian (other than Steev and Paul) mentioned by name in the article is my girlfriend. The bad news is that they called her Tara Reid. Oops. My girlfriend is much prettier.

Update: Dear Chicago Comedian, please do not be the 96th person to call Erica "Tara" thinking you are being original or funny. Unless you're doing it just because you're really hankering for a swift kick in the nads. Because that's what you're gonna get.

Steev had guessed that the opening night of the new open run of Don't Spit the Water would have 30 people in the audience. I'm happy to say that he was 200% wrong (50% wrong?) -- the show was jam-packed* and they had to turn people away. A reviewer was there from the Daily Herald, so look for that review soonish.

I had my camera* along and Steev has put up a gallery of some of the shots. I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do because I was helping Cutie Bumblesnatch with some of her bits, but here are some of my favorites:

A completely candid and unposed backstage photo.

Cutie makes someone spit just by staring at them while wearing a viking hat and marshmallows on her fingers.

Staedtler Per Müstach emotes the heck out of a song.

Earl LaRue makes the same woman spit through the sheer power of his maniless.

Some weekend suggestions from FuzzyCo HQ:

The exhibit at the Lincoln Park Zoo that Kate did all the art for has opened. You can go visit anytime the zoo is open, but we're headed over tonight to gawk.

Tomorrow (Saturday) night at 10:30 is opening night for the new run of Don't Spit the Water. You'd be a fool not to go. Reason for non-foolishness Number One - the three comedians are all great - Erica as Cutie Bumblesnatch, Robert Buscemi as Earl LaRue, and Nick Vatterott as The Interragator. Reason of non-foolishness Number Two - Sasha and the Noob puppets. Most Important Reason Number Three - this show only is FREE.

And hey, if you've made it out to the Playground to see a FREE show, you might as well stick around and pay for Documentary South at midnight. Chris Biddle said, "The cast is confident and smart. ... The Documentary Style of play also works, really, really well. ... I really, really enjoyed myself at the show. I am recomending the show, without reservations. ... Do yourself a favor and check it out. ... Congrats cast and crew on a genuinely entertaining show. It's the good stuff." And he should know, because he's on the Internet.

originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

"Hey Kate," I said on the phone to my friend Kate O'Leary, "you're all over Michigan Avenue!" Then I made a crude joke about the animal on the banner that made Kate sigh with sadness that I was her friend.

The banners are for a new exhibit at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Kate did all the illustrations (11 large paintings and 20+ smaller pieces) for the exhibit -- the Pritzker Family Children�s Zoo. There are all sorts of woodland creatures in the exhibit -- bears and otters and wolves and yes, beavers, and Kate did story-book style paintings of each of them. The exhibit officially opens today, and Kate says it's really cool for her to see her art up in such a public place and in such a permanent fashion. It's really cool for me to have my friend back again after a year of "I can't go out tonight, I have to work on the turtle for the zoo."

And Kate's art is not only available to world-class institutions like the LPZ. She runs Kate's Pet Portraits where she'll do you up your precious Mr. Snuggles in her expressive style.

A couple of months ago I was turned onto the notion of the movie Me and You and Everyone We Know by tinyluckygenius, but I missed that showing at Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival so I had no idea when I might see this indie movie. Over those last few months I've been following along on writer/director/actor Miranda July's blog as she traveled with the film and and shared emails from the frightfully clever young actor Brandon Ratcliff and won the Camera d'Orr at Cannes. And then a few weeks ago the great news, Chicago is a "select city"*. And then last night, Erica and I went on a real date and went to La Creperie and then across the street to see Me and You and Everyone We Know. It might have been the bottle of L'Ecole No 41 Semillon we split, but we both thought it was wonderful. I teared up at the end, I'm not too proud to say. And I'm not sure why I can even say it was so great -- it was funny in parts, certainly, and so much of it didn't make sense, but it was so right. And since I've made this such a link-heavy post already, I'll point out Jessica's update about the movie, and Roger Ebert's review, and the Learning to Love You More website (a co-project of Miranda's) that gives you art assignments.

I think this became this.

So Erica was an Assistant Ticket Services Manager at the Goodman Theatre for almost 5 years, pretty much since she moved to Chicago, and she loved the people there and was very good at her job, but she woke up one morning (or a bunch of mornings, actually) and said, "If I don't quit this job soon, I'll be in Ticket Services for the rest of my life, and that's not what I want to do."

So she gave two months notice (like I said, she really liked the Goodman and didn't want to leave them in a lurch) and went and talked to a staffing agency that a number of her friends has recommended. They told her that two months was really too far out to start looking, and to come back a few weeks before she left the Goodman.

Well, just before Erica's last day, her dad got some bad news about his cancer and began to plan a trip to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas for some more tests. Erica decided her new joblessness was a God-send and went along with her parents. Which, from a family- and emotional health- and living your life right-perspective was great. But it did set her job-hunting back a few weeks.

Now that she's back in Chicago, she's been working with that staffing agency, interviewing up a storm and working temp jobs, but nothing has clicked yet. So... if you know anyone who's looking for a swell gal with excellent project management, personal management, and general office (Word, Excel, databases, etc.) skills, and ton of personality and enthusiasm, let her know.

So I miss a Koko show for the first time in months (stupid headache) and it turns out to be best improv show ever.

I spent part of my Saturday painting the trim in the front hallway (finally finishing an 11-month-old project) and listening to Mitch All Together in memory of Mitch Hedberg, who died last week. Boo, death, boo. (The Big Ticket and Music for Robots each have some Mitch mp3s. I especially like "Three Easy Payments".)

Unrelated, except that it's standup, I've been enjoying Patton Oswalt lately, in form of Feelin' Kinda Patton and his Comedy Central special, and discovered (via Warren Ellis, of all people) that the hour or so of Feelin' Kinda Patton was drawn from a 2-and-a-half hour set at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA. And that that complete set is available on 2 CDs, called 222. It's certainly not for everyone, it's rougher than the selected material, but I liked some of the stuff on 222 better than Feelin' Kinda Patton and I loved the flow of the whole concert.

A couple of weeks ago I took a bunch of photos of KOKO for them to use as PR shots. #278 on my nigh-infinite list of projects is a portfolio on this site to advertise that I do that kind of work. For now, you can see one of the shots on the page listing the groups that will be performing on the showcase stage of the Chicago Improv Festival on April 30 at 9 pm.

Also, Steev has posted a chunk of photos I took at last week's Don't Spit the Water!. Having mentioned in the last paragraph that I'm pimping myself out for photo work, I feel compelled to mention that I took those shots sitting off to the side of the stage, with my tiny-but-not-very-fancy camera, and whilst drinking. (Tools do not equal talent, but that little camera is not so great with the theater lighting.) Whee! Is that Peter De Giglio, star of WNEP's Let There Be Light, trying not to spit the water? I believe it is.

And speaking of Cutie Bumblesnatch, if you're planning on seeing DSTW! primarily to see Cutie (aka Erica) then you'll want to skip tonight and next week -- Erica's dad is off to MD Anderson for some more tests (boo, cancer. boo, I say) and my good egg of a girlfriend is going along for moral support.

If you're going to see DSTW! just to see people try not to spit water (which is a fine reason) then go, go!

And, since I guess this has turned into a what-you-could-do-this-weekend post, I'll mention that the above-mentioned LTBL is closing this weekend (I'll be there) and Saturday night, just in time for Easter, is the Belmont Burlesque Revue's Seven Deadly Sins Pagaent. For the first time in several months, I'm not performing any comedy at the BBR and so you'll find me in the audience, likely with a drink in one hand and a camera in the other.

Because when I hang out with Steev, sometimes I get an invite to go see a jug band play at at a neighborhood association potluck in a church basement. And I win a door prize.

Want to hang out with Steev? Come to Don't Spit the Water tonight and you can pretend you're his friend. Erica will be there, too, as Cutie Bumblesnatch. Whee!

One of my favorite artists is El Rey Del Art -- for a year I was in his El Rey of the Month club so my room is chock-full of el rey goodness. And now he has a blog, full of fascinating posts about his techniques and esthetic.

In completely unrelated news, except that both make me happy, if you use Firefox (and why don't you?) you can install the Pimpzilla theme. Awww-yeah. I think it's the little "glint" that all the buttons get when you mouse over them that makes me smile so much.

Erica is walking in the Mother's Day Y-Me Race Against Breast Cancer and if she gets her donation bar up to $100 she gets a free t-shirt (and, um... I guess the money goes to fight breast cancer or something).

Erica's sister-in-law has joined the blogosphere.

Hey, Erica's choreography was on national television! Sasha and the Noob and Time-Keeper Willis did a promo for Don't Spit the Water on WGN this morning and that dance they do with basketballs -- Erica choreographed that (there's more to the dance than the bouncing back and forth -- you'll have to come see the show to find out).

This Friday only, Shaun and I will be the secret mystery comedians at the end of the show. Shhh... it's a secret.

originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

We're sitting in Erica's living room listening to Andrew Bird's new CD, The Mysterious Production of Eggs for the third time. I had pre-ordered it on Amazon so we should have had it February 8 when it came out, but they shipped it UPS, which screwed everything up.

[UPS side rant: UPS is useless to me. I'm never home (and I don't live in a big building with a doorman or anything) and then, to add insult to injury, when they've tacked the dreaded 3rd notice to my front door and I have to go pick up my package at the UPS office -- it's in Northbrook! I live in a major city precisely so I can use public transportation and don't have to own a car. I had to wait until my roommate was in Las Vegas so I could borrow his pick-up truck, which meant that I got my package tonight literally minutes before it was put on a truck to be shipped back to Amazon.]

[Disclaimer: don't bother telling me about package redirect requests or having stuff shipped to work or whatever. I know how to get UPS packages, this time it was just a cascading series of problems that led to having to drive to Northbrook at rush hour on Friday. But we did get to eat tooooo much food at that suburban delight, Steak N' Shake.]

Where was I? Andrew Bird. Amazing. This new CD is a collection of songs that have been fan- (well, Erica-) favorites in concert for years but haven't appeared on any of his earlier albums. A lot of these songs have evolved quite a bit over the years as Andrew has experimented with different sounds, and I think they're great here. [Erica: "They're perfect! This is already my favorite Andrew Bird CD!"]

And it's got everything you'd expect and want on an Andrew Bird album: Kevin O'Donnell (dreamy), Nora O'Connor (Erica: "Smouldering!"), a CD booklet chock-full of Jay Ryan art, two songs whose titles are little pictures, whistling, and haunting, beautiful, rocking songs.

Andrew's on tour right now opening for Ani DiFranco, so the CD release show won't be until April 16 at the Metro. I'm sure I'll be raving about it in April. And Andrew will be backing Ani on her appearance on the Late Late show with Craig Ferguson on Monday (February 21).

If you'd like to hear some of these songs evolve, there are 50 different Andrew Bird concerts available from the Live Music Archive (it was a fun weekend once going through a spindle of 50 CD-Rs making Erica a instant collection).

And here's A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left from the new album (from Andrew's Listen page).

originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

We just came back from The House Theatre's Curse of the Crying Heart and it ROCKED!

Let's see, it had comedy and tragedy and epic action and martial arts and wire work and a rock band on stage (with the dreamy Kevin O'Donnell on drums) and it addresses fundamental questions of what it means to be a hero, and 500 Clown's Molly Brennan is in it (also dreamy) and did I mention the fights?

Curse is the second in a planned trilogy of plays called the Valentine Trilogy, but you won't miss out on a lot if you haven't seen the first play (San Valentino and the Melancholy Kid) as it's something of a thematic trilogy -- the first play was set in the Wild West, this one in feudal Japan, and the third play is set in Chicago of the 1930s. And when you do fall in love with this play and want to know more, they have DVDs of San Valentino for sale.

For more, you know, coherent reviews, the Sun-Times and the Tribune have both reviewed the show. And if you want a behind-the-scenes look, House has a new blog.

Bare's own Shaun Himmerick is interviewed by Game Chronicles Magazine about the forth-coming Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks videogame.

And my coworker Kyle Kolbe has an article in this month's Playboy (March 2005 -- with Paris Hilton on the cover) about putting together a $200,000 stereo system for $20,000. Bargain!

I just found out the scary, oh-well-I-guess-I-lost-all-that-typing-way that MarsEdit autosaves. Ranchero rocks!

Erica took me to the opening of I Am My Own Wife at the Goodman last night. Above she's with the sole actor from the show, Jefferson Mays. The show was as good as I've been hearing.

Shaun, on the other hand, went to see All Shook Up (one of those musicals where they take a bunch of songs from an artist and then build a loose story around them -- like Mama Mia) and it was terrible. And Shaun loves Elvis.

Susannah Breslin is writing a novel and I donated a small amount to help her write it, because we're pro-art here at FuzzyCo. And pro-cowgirl.

originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

One of my weaknesses is the $10 price point. So after I heard Kristin R�nne play a single verse of Redemption Song (yes, the Bob Marley song, but done in a folky style) down in the Chicago station of the Red Line, I threw two $5s in her cardboard box, took a CD, and got on the train that had just arrived. Not bad if you like that lady-singer-songwriter kinda stuff. The album is all originals -- pity, I wouldn't mind having that Redemption Song cover.

originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

On Sunday when we got back from Mississippi we were waiting for our luggage at Midway and Erica and I displayed the frightening trend we've had lately for thinking the same thing at the same time. "I was thinking we could drop my stuff off at my house and then go eat at..." "Hopleaf!" "Yeah!"

Hopleaf is right around the corner from Erica's house so we were eating there a lot in the fall and drinking a lot of lambics (Belgian fruit beers). For a long time the Hopleaf has been known for their wide selection of beers (a half-a-jillion on tap, all served in specialized glassware) but I was always put off from visiting because the bar was a tiny, loud smoke-filled room. But fairly recently they greatly expanded the bar and added an upstairs and a smoke-free dining area in the back.

On Sunday night the front room was, as always, tiny, loud and smoke-filled. But the back room was quiet, with plenty of open tables. We decided to take a detour from our usual lambics to try one of the drinks under the "warmers" section of the menu. We got a bottle of Quelque Chose, a cherry beer from Canada that's served warm. Tart and sweet and warming.

I usually get the ham-and-cheese sandwich, which comes with frites, but Sunday I decided to branch out on the menu and get the porkchop and Erica got the roast chicken. Neither came with frites, so we got them as a side. You have to have frites!

Erica's chicken wasn't perfect -- a great flavor and moist, but a little tough. My porkchop, though, was great. Super thick and seared on the outside, but tender and flavorful all the way through.

Our Quelque Chose ran out just as we were getting our entrees, so we decided to try the other item in the "warmers" section: gl�gg. Where the Quelque Chose (and most other items on the menu) had an extensive description, gl�gg was simply listed as "gl�gg -- served in a cup". But we've both been living near Andersonville for years we knew gl�gg was some kind of Scandinavian mulled wine and we figured it was time to try it.

We had a little surprise when the gl�gg came to the table -- most of the drinks at the Hopleaf are served in glassware from the brewery that is somehow precisely designed to exhance the characteristics of that drink. The gl�gg came in a wide and shallow punch glass, like you might get at a church function. The bigger surprise came we took our first sip and we discovered that gl�gg was rocketfuel. 19% alcohol and made with grain alcohol, it turns out.

I don't know if it had really warmed up while we were inside Hopleaf, or if it was the gl�gg, but I didn't wear my hat or gloves when we left the bar and I felt toasty.

Erica says, "Love the Hopleaf. Love the lambics. Nice back dining room with no smoke."

originally posted on Metroblogging Chicago

I'm going to play a little catch-up here on some good meals I've had lately, working my way back in time:

Last night we finally got to La Fonda when they were still open. La Fonda is about halfway between my house and Erica's, so we pass it all the time, but often late at night and we gaze longingly at the menu in the window. We've even made it in the door only to be turned away because the kitchen had just closed. But last night, we made it inside. Score.

La Fonda is sort of pan-Latino, with an emphasis on plantains. But damn, those plantains were good. We had the Milanesa de cerdo, which was a breaded and fried porkloin served with plantains and a chicken tostada which replaced the usual corn tortilla with a deep fried green plantain. Crunchy, crispy, tender meat and just-sweet-enough plantains.

Erica says, "The plantains and pork were great. Much more flavorful than I expected. And not too pricey."

Kaki King, Tin Angel, Philadelphia, December 9, 2004

Kyle and I were talking today about great opening bands we've missed (I missed Nirvana, Kyle somehow missed most of DJ Shadow because he was his own opening band (it was complicated)) and so tonight I... got to the show late and missed Devon Sproule. Oops.

I walked into the Tin Angel to find a silent room of people enraptured by Kaki King. She plays guitar. And that's it. (She was talking about getting popular in between some songs tonight and said, "You don't need to worry about singing or dancing, because I can't do those things.") Some of her stuff was quiet and slow and some was fast and sometimes she slaps her guitar and does all crazy things with plucking strings and scratching the pickups and sometimes she just played. It was a great show.

There are going to be more and more of these as Midway Marketing heats up on Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, but Shaun was interviewed about MKSM by 1up.com.

Tonight is your last chance to see Don't Spit The Water, the "crazy live game show" that Erica is in. The Playground (3209 N Halsted) at 10:30 pm.

Tomorrow night I'll be on stage with CCC at The Playground (still 3209 N Halsted) at 8:00 pm. Mustang Repair, The Party, and Homey Loves Chachi also perform. I can slip you a 2-for-1 if you ask.

Monday Bare will be... OK, let's back up half a step here. I've been improvising for (eek) 14 years now, which means that for 14 years I've been having this short conversation: "So what do you do?" "Improv comedy" "Oh, like stand-up?" "Not really."

Well, this Monday I have to change that conversation a little. Because Shaun and I will be doing stand-up comedy at the Bird's Nest Bar (2500 N Southport). The wings are great and our jokes will be pre-planned.

On Friday night, Erica was the first one of the Don't Spit The Water comedians to make a contestant spit the water. Above, she is doing so by sheer intimidation.

Once again I present my weekend plans as a proposed model for your weekend plans.

Tonight (Friday, 10/29) we're having our work Halloween/10th anniversary of playboy.com party (umm... you're not invited, sorry). But candy and beer will surely get me in the mood to see Dan in Shades of Red: Four Tales of Horror and Intrigue at 8 pm. It's four spooooky one-act plays presented by the Box Theatre Group at Frankie J's Methadome Theatre (4437 N Broadway). Will I have time for ribs at Frankie J's before the show? I hope so. Yummy. Anyway, it's the last night for Shades of Red. So... Boo!

Then from Boo! to Ha! and from last to first, it's the opening night of Don't Spit the Water, a crazy new live game show presented by
Steev at The Playground (3209 N Halsted) at 10:30 pm. Erica is Cutie Bumblesnatch in the show, so I have to go. But you will want to! The show runs Fridays until November 17.

Saturday (10/30) I'm performing with Chicago Comedy Company at The Playground (still 3209 N Halsted) at 8 pm. I've been performing with this group for a relatively short time, but I really feel like I'm in a good groove with the group and that we're having a lot of fun on stage. Three other groups - Miss Hawaiian Tropic, Orange Whip, and Atticus Finch - will perform also.

And then it's Halloween-Party-Hopping-Time until I collapse on the couch Sunday afternoon to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with some friends. Hmmm... I'm bloated with candy and hung-over already, just thinking about it.

Long-time readers know that I do a lot of my shows at The Playground: I'm part of a member ensemble there (next show this Saturday), Bare is often a guest ensemble at their shows (Wednesday, November 3 -- The Deuce!), I've directed and been cast in their Directors Series shows, my first Chicago ensemble was part of the Incubator program, and then years later I directed an Incubator group. The Playground is a non-profit co-op, operated by the member groups that perform there. It's an incredible resource for the improv community of Chicago.

So?

So, The Playground is doing the easiest fund raiser in the world. You like to shop, don't you? You need groceries, don't you? So print out this coupon and go do your grocery shopping at a Jewel-Osco from Monday, October 25 to Wednesday, October 27. The Playground gets a percentage of your purchase and you get that warm feeling inside from a) helping out a good thing and b) eating the food you bought.

Will telling you what I'm going to do this weekend influence what you might do this weekend? I can only hope.

Tonight (10/21) I'm headed to the opening night of the Camenae Ensemble Theatre Company's Can You Hear Their Voices? at Steep Theatre (3902 N Sheridan). Erica's in the show, so I am assured it will be amazing. The show runs Thursday to Sunday through November 21, so you'll have plenty of chances to see it.

Friday night (10/22), I'll be picking up my topic for the Fast Forward Film Festival and then heading over to see FuzzyCo's musical director Ben Taylor play with Marydee Reynolds at Martyrs' (3855 N. Lincoln Ave), opening for the Twinemen (featuring ex-members of Morphine). Ben sez "It'll be some stripped down rocking, sort of swampy, all good. Come on down, or up as the case may be."

Saturday night (10/23) is a full one. At 8 pm I'll be on stage with Chicago Comedy Co at The Playground (3209 N Halsted) (Diva, Ohio, and Malice also perform). Meanwhile, the short film that I will have made Friday night and Saturday for the Fast Forward Film Festival will be playing at Wesley Kimler's Gallery (2046 West Carroll). And at midnight it's back to The Playground for the Belmont Burlesque Revue (I'm not performing, just supporting).

Sunday night (10/24) I have a date. Go find something to do on your own.

Monday night (10/25) (OK, I realize we're not techinically in the "weekend' anymore, but work with me here) Bare will be performing at Bird's Nest Bar (2500 N Southport) with 3 standup comedians and another improv group. We did this same show last week and I have to say that it was a little rough, mainly because there was hardly anyone there (it was game 6 of the Red Sox-Yankees series). But you can help change that. And let me entice you with a cheap $3 cover, $1 tacos, and $2 PBRs. And great wings. And I'll probably be so happy to see you at the show that I'll buy you one of those $2 PBRs.

Or if you prefer your charity a little more get-out-the-ol'-checkbook (and a little more tug-the-heartstrings) Penny Arcade has launched the second year of their holiday charity Child's Play. Penny Arcade is a hilarious (and violent and foul-mouthed) web comic for gamers. Last year they decided to combat the media image of gamers as mass murderers-in-training by organizing gamers to donate toys and money to the Seattle Children's Hospital. Last year they raised over $250,000 in cash and toy donations.

This year they've expanded Child's Play to include Children's Hospitals in Houston, Oakland, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Many of the items on the wish lists are, as Kitty Loaf reminds me, about the cost of a latte. You don't need that much caffiene anyway.

In a comment on my previous suggestion to St. Louis County's First District voters that they vote for Charlotte VanVactor for County Commissioner, 'duluthian' asks "why?"

Well, because she's my friend, of course.

I know that Charlotte is both committed to the welfare and well-being of others, and intensely practical -- a combination that I think makes her a great asset to any sort of public office.

Oh, and because I'm godfather to her children. So if she gets elected I can say "Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me." Over and over, until she's sick of it.

You can vote for Chicago Metblog as Best Local Blog in New City's Best of Chicago 2004 Poll (and, oh yeah, best other stuff, too. But Best Local Blog, that's the ticket!)

If you wanted to say that the Chicago Neutrino Project was the best theater production of the last year or so, well, I wouldn't mind that either.

It's a little bare bones at the moment, but if you're interested in seeing Erica Reid perform, you can now check out www.ericareid.com for all your Erica Reid-related performance information needs.

Paul Kamp is a Chicago musician -- he plays guitar in three different bands and bass in R. Buzzy and used to play with Busker Soundcheck. Of course, you can't make a living as a musician, so Paul fixes boats, too. Three weeks ago, a hatch closed on his left index finger. He lost most of the top of the finger. He will play again (this is a man I saw do a show with a theremin because he couldn't play his bass due to a broken arm) but it's going to take time and reconstructive surgery. To raise money for that surgery, a bunch of Paul's musical friends are getting together to "Give Paul Kamp the Finger".

Saturday, September 11th (eek!), 10 pm at Martyrs' (3855 N Lincoln). $15 donation at the door.

The line up so far includes:
Busker Soundcheck members Chris Klein & Dan Sopher with guest guitarists
Dugout
Dyslexic Apaches (reunion)
Gringo Starr
Led Zeppelin live experience
R. Buzzy
Snaklab All-Tsars
Texpert
Woolworthy
The Artist Formally Known As Vince
and as many guests and surprises as time will allow.

Every band will be playing a Busker Soundcheck song in their own style.

If you can't make the show and still want to help out, you can contact Dan Sopher at kksopher@earthlink.net.

In a postscript to an email filled with computer woes (poor guy) my friend Scott Frankenberger noted that he and another friend, Linda Vanderkolk, had won a competition to design a mural for the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California. If you're in Berkeley after September 2005, be sure to check it out. Until then you can check out their way-cool design.

My friend Charlotte VanVactor is running for St. Louis County [Minnesota] Commissioner. May I humbly suggest that if you live in the first district that you Vote VanVactor.

The Kady Ditch website, featuring pictures I took of the band, is now live.

We didn't make it to Uncommon Ground in time last night, so we missed their song in the open mic competition. And they didn't win, so no encore. But there are a jillion songs on their website. And Allison posted more of the Holga shots.

We were late because we at the opening night of LiveWire Theater's Much Ado About Nothing. Erica and her partner Jeff Gandy choreographed two dances in the show. (Their new company is called We're Dancing Y'all! -- "choreography for non-dancers".)

Ray Koltys will be on Chicago Public Radio's Eight Forty-Eight tomorrow (Thursday, June 24) between 10 and 11 AM central time (schedule subject to change) discussing the current burlesque revival scene in Chicago. Michelle Baldwin, author of the new book Burlesque and the New Bump and Grind, will also be interviewed. Tune to 91.5FM in the Chicago area or via internet (RealPlayer). Hopefully (fingers crossed) he'll plug the Belmont Burlesque Revue, at which Himmerick and Gerdes will be performing this Saturday.

If you are unable to listen then, the story will be archived online (beginning Friday).

Or... if you'd like a web version of the schedule, with links to performers webpages and so on, I've whipped this up.

YesAnd.com has filled a noticable gap in the Chicago Improv Festival website by producing a color-coded, downloadable consolidated schedule (55K PDF) of the entire festival.

I rode the motorcycle out to Arlington Heights last night (highway! windy! exciting!) for a corporate gig that was frantic and trying. But it happened that because I was already out in the 'burbs that I was able to make the opening night of Noises Off at the Metropolis Arts Center.

I love Noises Off (I've seen 4 or 5 productions of the play, not counting the movie) and this production is directed by my friend Sandy Marshall (of Schadenfreude) and stars Jim Jarvis and Paul Grondy (and several other talented people). It was delightful. Totally worth a frustrating trip to the suburbs (well, hopefully you won't have to do a gig while you're out seeing the play).

Tonight is the last Fight Club for the foreseeable future. So if you've been thinking of coming out, tonight is the night. The Playground, 3209 N. Halsted, 10:30 pm.

Newcity has published a great review of Dan Izzo's Damnation Game:

RECOMMENDED BY NEWCITY!
#4 on the List of 5 Shows to See Now!

The Damnation Game, Fridays at 10:30 at the Bailiwick through April,
1229 W. Belmont.

Hell in the 1950s might have looked something like this. Local improv vet Dan Izzo directs a six-person cast in a biting adaptation of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" that relies on audience participation and grants prizes to those who sacrifice themselves for inevitable embarrassment. But it's all in good fun--a pre-show handout asks if you�re willing to jump up on stage, so if you�re shy, don�t sweat. Much like the British- turned-American improv show, the comedians play for prizes, including a considerable amount of Rice-a-Roni this time, in the name of an audience member. Erica Nos[c]hang�s exploitation of drunk, socialite America is priceless, while Bill Cochran keeps the audience wrapped in giggles with mere facial expressions. Izzo does an effective job as the show�s "host," a pissed-off Drew Carey of sorts, leading a young, promising cast of actors who work well together.

-Tom Lynch

I have no reason to plug it except that it's really cool: issue #3 of Found Magazine is out now.

Seriously, put some freakin' art in your house:

• Aaron Gang
• Chank
• Cheesy Graphics
• El Rey del Art
• Kate O'Leary
• Russ LaChanse