FuzzyCo

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 Ruth 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 Ruth 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.