Jorin invited me to accompany him to North Carolina in early July. He was headed home to celebrate his 14th year doing improv and had set up 4 shows for us to partake in at his old stomping ground, ComedyWorkx. We did 2 short form shows that I thought we knocked out of the park, sat in with their resident Harold team, and did a 2 man show under the name 'Babyweather' (which comes from a Pudding Thank You show where it started to rain babies and Jorin stuck out his hand and declared "hmmm...looks like babyweather") which was by far my favorite show of the weekend. I also finally got to dig into some NC vinegar BBQ, complete with hush puppies and sweet tea. Pretty fantastic.
I've begun producing a weekly improv show at the American Theater Company which is going great. The group I'm on, Pudding Thank You was made the 'house team', so we perform every show and then we have a different group play with us each show (recently 3033). My favorite part of all this is making teams by handpicking 8 or 9 improvisers whom I respect and really enjoy watching perform. It's my chance to show my appreciation for those who have been supportive of me, been great friends and people who have just plain been nice to me and made me feel welcome in the improv community. I've really made a point of refusing to ask anyone to play who, regardless of talent, is a real d-bag (except Rob White). Our crowds have been on average about 30 people with a few shows going into 60 +, so that's pretty sweet seeing as we just started this all about a month ago.
This past Saturday I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in a podcast focusing on improv with Jason Chin, Cesar Jamie and Jorin. Jason put the whole thing together and is looking to make it a regular thing with various guests. It was great to just sit and chat with those guys for an hour about all things improv. For the first 15 minutes or so I felt silly because I would lean my face forward into the recorder every time I spoke, as if it couldn't pick up my voice from 2 feet away. It reminded me of my sister who would jump up with her controler whenever we played Mario Bros. on NES as kids. I would shake my head and tell her "It's not like the controller can sense that you're jumping", well now the Wii is out and she gets the last laugh.
Other exciting stuff!:
- Lollapalooza is this weekend
- I leave for NYC the following weekend to do 4 shows in the Del Close Marathon
- Tab and I are planning a trip to Austin
- the past several Insult to Injury, Mort and Pudding Thank You shows have been ridiculous amounts of joy
- I saw Dark Knight opening night at IMAX in the best seat in the theater, 2nd to last row, dead center
- Finished all of Y: The Last Man
- Hunter Family Crest is on the new schedule at iO
Life is good
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