If one more cliche pops out of your face...

i'm going to end you. now eat your food.

well, it's been a while and more things have happened than i could possibly talk about. i'll pick some highlights.

- drove down to austin with the cupholders in the cupholder mobile (yet to be officially named) without incident.

- did the solo show thursday for the out of bounds festival. whoo. felt real good. maybe one of the best i've ever done. the interview was outstanding and probably had the biggest laugh in the whole show where the girl i interviewed upstaged me big time. the highlight of the show involved a stick with a coat hanger on the end of it. i also had a conversation with my extremeties ending with my willie and how he's lonely now. self-indulgent but funny and cathartic. i think i have recovered whatever i was missing from my solo show an i'm leaning toward the idea that i need to care less about the outcome of the show. in new york and in tornonto i was way too concerned with how my colleagues would see me afterwards. the last two times i've done the show, i've just gone into it not giving a muck what the audience would think at the end of the show.

- did a no shame improv thing with mikey d. that was really funny. good to be on stage with mike again by ourselves. he has great patience and he knows how to pay things off. i usually set things up and he knocks em down.

- friday did the final gravy show of all time, the closing of a very small yet significant chapter in our improv careers. we decided to do the format that we developed specifically for the first out of bounds festival, the elevator. in which we don't take a suggestion and all get trapped in an elevator. then we go into scenes about each other's stories coming back to the elevator to reset. so, it was appropriate that our last show would be the same format as our first. it was amazing. everyone was leaving a lot of space, not stepping on anybody's toes. it was the best teamwork i had ever been a part of with eight people on stage. it was beautiful. the crowd was feeling it. we got a standing ovation. it was hot stuff. really fun and great mid form improv.

- saturday did the golf thing, had a good time. did a whole lot of sweating. saturday night did the improv jam for the festival. now... here's where things get messy. our suggestion was butter. lights went out and the lights came up on one of my fellow jamsters with his pants open, boxers akimbo. nothing happened for a few seconds, no one made any moves. i figured hey, the suggestion is butter, his pants are open, things are getting more and more awkward as time passes. i have an idea of something. i don't like it. and by the time i was done with all those thoughts, my hand was forced (literally) to make a move. i went out established that i had some butter in my left hand. rubbed my right hand on the butter and went to town. someone quickly edited the scene and it was down. i regretted doing it although i did feel it was necessary and it didn't last a gratuitous amount of time. but as is typical in jams, the callbacks began almost instantly and everyone was going scatalogical. blue jokes everywhere, mysogeny, genital, bigoted, you name it. it was happening. and i kept thinking, nice work jeremy, you kicked this jam in the butt at the top of an icy hill and now we were all sliding into the depths of i've-never-improvised-with-you-before-ever hell. i tried to fix things but it was no use. the mob group mind was already out of control and i was letting it show on my face. i was stupid several times over, making my fellow players look bad. feel that sting. that's pride. i felt it and i couldn't swallow it. the jam ended and we all went to our respective holes. sighing deeply. of course, it wasn't that dramatic but i tend to beat myself up about bad improv. what would i have done differently at the beginning of that set? could i have edited my brain and worked in something else that involved butter and his open jeans? the correct answer is yes. but its also the incorrect answer. if i remember this incident and it occurs to me at a later date during improv that i should edit myself and halt an impulse, i will be stuck in a stupid ineffective brain loop. its something i have to forget. easier said than done, obviously, but if i let it haunt me as it has walking around the past few hours, i will be uined. or even worse, RUINED.

- monday and tuesday, available cupholders make their debut and it's nice to be able to do it in our true hometown of austin. i'm really looking forward to making this ac thing being brilliant, and i think we can get there with a little hard work.

boy, my life has done a complete 180 from a month ago. everything is so different. dat bebe is gone, the cupholders are in chicago, i'm on tour with my best friends, show sales for the cupholders are picking up, and i just met my new nephew which was cool. i've been surrounded by people who respect my work all week long (my ego is enormous) yet i feel incredibly lonely. classic sob story right. well, i'm not falling for it. i'm not falling for my own b.s. cliches. i WILL strike a balance. i WILL be successful and companionated. now is just not the time for a lady. i just hope i don't get a whole mess of success and look around to find nobody there. it wasn't going to happen that way but it looks like it might. waaah, wahhh. cry me a river, there are plenty fish in the sea.

if one more cliche pops out of your face...

b