2 things; "best of" and O

CD: Atlantic Recordings by Loudon Wainwright III

So, I have two unrelated items to talk about.

1)
I went to see too much light makes the baby go blind on sunday. a show that i have already spoke very highly of somewhere in this journal thing. i was going again to take de bebe with me. she has just moved up and this was a show i really wanted her to see. i was hoping for a lot of the same sketches to be still in the lineup as they change frequently. what we discovered was that it was a "best of" installment of the show. they took the best sketches (plays they call them, they're really more like sketches) and threw them all in their 30 plays in 60 minutes show order.
when i saw that it was a "best of" on the way into the theatre i was a little skeptical. "best of" shows are ususally not that. the show was good but not as good as my first experience with them. and i think this is why. the performer doesn't know what their best is. i imagine they picked sketches that were fun for them to perform. but the funnest or easiest to perform are not always the "best." i don't know who would be better qualified to determine what the best sketches from the year were, and maybe this was their very best, the show just didn't come off with the same pop. there was some repetiton and some of the sketches i really enjoyed from the november show i saw were not included. this just comes down to a matter of opinion and maybe other audience members enjoyed the show more than the regular year's installments. to me, the crowd didn't seem as into it. they looked tired at 8pm as the show came to a close. for me, i would have preferred to see a regular show with the same routine of play selection and production that they use the rest of the year. stick to what works. getting fancy with things doesn't usually produce fruit.

2)
oprah has lost her fucking mind. here in chicago, they love her. they re-run her show in a late night slot and i happened to catch part of it tonight after skipping the taiwanese kickboxing match on the asian grab bag channel. it was her "oprah loves it" product showcase show. it occurs to me that i've seen this before and that she does it once a year. several holidays ago i think i caught my mom watching it and i thought, "oh, how nice, oprah shows these cool products and then gives everyone in the audience one of their very own." that was a few years ago before i understood underhanded marketing ploys, the dumbing down of the consumer, and outright shillism.
oprah is no more than a whore for these companies and her show has gone beyond being entertainment and performance. it's a commercial. it's an infomercial. a one-hour infomercial for the upper class, or even more dangerously, for the middle class who is killing themselves to become upper class. i saw this cool report on a new economic phenomenon known as 'trading up' about how people are constantly buying up on their products. it helps them feel like they are a higher class. here they are surrounded by over priced and underused products that are sold to them by oprah. she goes to these boxes laid out on a table in front of her and does a commercial for each. she goes down the line and demonstrates the product, says the retail price and then gives away one to everyone in the audience. the audience which is packed full of women who look like they came off some kind of "sex and the city" factory line with their sculpted $100 oprah hairdos and their diamond earrings that probably had their husbands working 70 hours a week for two months while they cried about how he was never home, well they just go nuts, screaming like this is the best day of their life.
imagine that. nothing else elicits this kind of response from these women. the birth of their child, a graduatin, their wedding day, really good playoff football. none of these things makes them as excited as the new sony DV R268 digital camcorder, a must have at only $1,199.00. aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
how fucked is the world when a stream pf presents brings people so much joy? and how wrong is it that oprah is the product arbitor for these ladies and anyone watching the show, agendizing their holiday wish lists? it really pisses me off. another thing that pisses me off is that i'm not in that audience and i'm not getting free Ugg boots and the watch that madonna gave to her. and that pisses me off, too. i'm pissed that i'm so pissed that all of this stuff is not going to me. i'm no better. i'm just another product of this culture that seeks to squeeze every dime out of me so that sony can keep buying networks and shoving mariah carey records down my throat.
i'm also pissed that it was once a performance. her show used to be entertainment. she used to break from the programming for commercials. well, she still breaks for commercials you just can't tell when it happens. it really is just like an infomercial. they say, "ok, we're gonna break from commercials, we'll be right back." and then the commercial break is them selling the same product. oprah has been perverted into a whore for the next new product and the ultimate product, MONEY. make no mistake, she is a whore.
don't even get me started on her magazine, O. please don't get me started on it. stop me on it. you're lucky i'm tired of typing.

lips pursed, i sigh and try to think of something other than oprah and self-interested "best of" shows.

bl

#1 OR Mutual exclusivity

NO CD: de Bebe sleeping.

well, a lot has happened since i posted last. it was about three days ago. de bebe, my girlfriend who i am now living in sin with, moved in, i started working at my holiday temp job, it snowed a little bit, and saddam hussein was captured.

i will not attempt to make an effort to link these things. i don't believe in trying to make connections between things that aren't there; things that are mutually exclusive. it snowing has nothing to do with the fact that i started my job, wherein i am helping snotty kids into an inflatable bouncer so they can go crazy for three minutes.
my girlfriend moving in has no connection to the snow. one is a meteorological phenomenon, the other is a consenual act between humans.
and all of these things, much like several other things have no relation to saddam being captured. it's actually very simple when you take a step back and look at everything. when you can really say, ok, these things are mutually exclusive.
[i'll spare the facts about how they are not linked because if you don't already know the facts this probably doesn't interest you in any way, anyhow.]
bin laden has not been shown to link to saddam. the american public is too quick to swallow the "axis of evil" argument which took all 'baddies' who happen to also not be christian and lump them into one big evil. and so by attacking one section of this axis we are avoiding a repetition of world war II, where a bunch of different evil guys who were acting in their own interests almost got out of control. it's bs.
capturing saddam is a good thing. BUT, it doesn't have anything to do with osama bin laden which was the whole reason we sent people half way around the world. when we couldn't find him, we went after old bullies.
and now that he's caught, what will bush's people come up with to keep us distracted until his job evaluation comes up in november '04? hmmmmm. maybe we'll attack the moon people because they've been effecting our weather patterns for the last million years or so. oh, i almost got caught up in it, too. i forgot that weather has nothing to do with dictatorship.

and anyone who tries to push the "good christian helper" thoery about crimes against humanity has got some serious denial issues. this is certainly not why we went into iraq. we went in to protect our interests (halliburton, weakened economy, exclusive reconstruction contracts.) that is always the case. just like everyone else, we're looking out for number one. it reeks of capitalism, but it also reeks of base animal instinct. if you're not protecting your own, what's the point? dogs have no honor. a dog will not die for god and country. why does man? has it been conditioned in us since we were little manlings that to die for your country is important? well, who do you think convinced us of that? could it be the people in power who have always had access to the medium of their choice to propagandize their own thoughts into truth? and why do you suppose they want us to die for them? could it be that they like their cushy chair and don't want it to go away? aren't they trying to survive, too, the best they know how?
the god thing is a larger issue and i'll be brief. let's face it, a long time ago, a really, really long time ago, so long we can't even remember exactly how it started, someone in a position of power invented god. they were peobably having trouble controlling thier masses and even wondered a bit themselves about where things came from and what happens when you die, and all that. i picture some cheiftain dude staring up into the starry sky and inventing something great that would shape history for thousands of years. he would go in front of his people and explain everything. and in the meantime, he would get to decide the rules. he would say that this god spoke to him and always speaks through him. he told him the rules and here the are. they amounted to mr. chieftain maintaining his people. their safety, their hope, and his power. he was just looking out for number one.
now, allow me to extend this silly charade further. assume mr. chieftain is running low on funds. his people are hungry and the river is not what it used to be. he is worried. he genuinely loves his people and wants them to be well. he also wants to not be killed by them for not doing a good job. so, he invents war. another idea that is somehow germinating in the human mind. conflict is very basic, and very natural. that's how things get done in the animal kingdom of which we are a part. so he invents war and goes to take away the neighbors stuff. the neighbors are not expecting an organized assembly of their friends to come over and kill them and take their fruit, but it happens. they were expecting another block party. the last one was so much fun. mr. chieftain got drunk and shit it in the onion dip. remember that? oh those were good times. but now you're about to stab me so you can eat my cumquat. it's sad really. even though we are just neighbors, i've always considered you to be like a brothe.... ow.
dead.
and from then on, whenever mr. chieftain needed more stuff or more control over his people, he just attacked someone else or made up some laws that the new god told him about. convenient, eh? and my how things have not changed much since then. it's not quite as easy to make your people swallow bullshit like they used to, but george bush figured out how to do it. oh, and so did his son.

so you see when it snows, it has nothing to do with the fact that people jumped out of a building 80 stories to their death to avoid being burned by jet fuel. the two are mutually exclusive and one was carried out for god and country. as fucked up and wrong as that may be.

woefully woken up really early,
bl

what?

the wind chill is now -3.

i'm totally confused.

bl

UPDATES IN SHOWS SECTION

CD: Look Sharp by Joe Jackson

There are some updates in the shows section; a record signing, a live appearance, and a show in Austin, TX.

The wind chill is now 1.

i think that means it's half as cold as it was when it was 2 degrees earlier. good. hopefully it's warming up.

where did i put my shorts?

bl

MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the wind chill is 2.
the wind chill should never be an age i've had.

shouldn't have traded my wool for booze.

bl

it's official

CD: Spine and Sensory by Tristeza

a search on google for "beardedlamb" turns up beardedlamb.com
that happened faster than i thought it would.

it's official. i have arrived.

bl

COMING SOON

an entry on the importance of beards and beardedlamb's own "Great Bearded Man Theory."

hockey: NOT PERFORMANCE

CD: A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay

in this entry, we will discuss how hockey is not performance.

as i like to begin each entry, my life has been an endless void of insomnia followed by bouts of intense unconsciousness. awakened yesterday solely by my upstairs neighbors having their weekly argument. as opposed to last week which was the typical, "You never do anything for me," this week i was treated to "we don't have sex as much as we used to. we used to do it until it was time to go to work," which actually evolved somehow into, "you're doing drugs too much. it used to just be recreational. it's recreational for me. how come it's not for you?" and the slightly unnerving, "you've lost so much weight." it kind of makes me wonder if they know i can hear them. considering i've never talked in my apartment because no one is here, i assume they don't know how thin the flooring really is. ready for the segue?
IT'S NOT PERFORMANCE UNLESS THE PERFORMER ACKNOWLEDGES IT IS.

this has been an ongoing debate amongst theatre thoerists. is a man buying groceries at the check out line in front of you performing? is a dog chasing a cat performing? is a woman crying in the cemetary performance? certainly not. unless she has invited people over from other graves and said, "hey, look at me cry," then she's not performing. she's not doing anything trying to elicit a response from me in the guise of character.
now the character thing is, of course, malleable. you can be "playing" yourself every day of your life and it's not considered a character. but think of it this way, how many times during the day are you actually yourself, if there is such a thing? when you're on the phone with your boss you're a character. when you're on the phone with your mother, you're a variation on that character. and even still when you're on the phone with either of these people in a quiet movie theatre, the character will change.
help, i'm lost in my own mind. they were supposed to teach me in high school how to follow up to an hypothesis. i think they failed.
i think my point is, the all-encompassing theory that anything is performance is not true. such as my neighbors upstairs yelling at each other quite rudely interrupting my dreams at the brisk hour of 3pm. AND hockey. how's that for a long-winded segue?

so i went to my first nhl game the other night. in keeping with recent chicago sports traditions, the blackhawks are on a 13 game winless streak with a record of 6-14-5. i have very little experience with hockey. i bet i've played more hockey games on my playstation than i've seen on tv, certainly more than i've seen live. it was extraordinary. did you know they have 2 halftimes? it surprising they don't make as much as other pro athletes considering they play for so long. i really got a bargain for my ticket. i saw a game and a half. that must explain why they allow ties. i don't usually watch sports where they stop in a tie. it was wierd when it did end in a tie. very anticlimactic. the bell went off and everybody stood up and started to leave. the players just left the ice. i sat there for about 20 minutes waiting for the fourth half to start, but it never did. i guess the players have a pretty strong union. "NO MORE TWO-GAME LENGTH GAMES."

anyway, they're not performing. they're competing. true, they may want to show the crowd a good time by demonstrating their exclusive skills. the bottom line is, they are there to win games. it's competitive. although, no one told the blackhawks this. in theatre, the people in front of the audience are there for similar reasons. to demonstrate skill, to entertain, to perhaps get laid. but they are working together, much like an individual team is to obtain their goal. the similarities are kind of interesting. the idea of a team is directly translated to the idea of an ensemble. group of people paying attention to each other, making each other look good, shooting for the same goals, and all led by a director. at improv olympic, and so throughout the chicago improv community, improv troupes are actually called teams, their directors called coaches. this wierded me out when i heard this. although it does make sense, it sounds like little league. i'm resisting as much as possible. i'd prefer to keep improv as close to theatre as possible. with the nomeclature being troupe or company and director, as i am used to.
but if you look at the history of improv olympic, which really is the front runner in improv operation round here, you find that it used to be a competitive atmosphere. two teams of improvisors would compete for the audience's affection, with the winning team remaining for next week's battle, and a new opponent (hence the word olympic.) this grew out of the improv traditions developed by Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone. Viola developed a lot of the early games and Keith pioneered the idea of improv being performed as a sporting event. and this is pretty general. this is not to say these are the only people who came up with these ideas. i know there are others. they just ended up with a lot the credit. i think the devlopment of improv as a competition was a huge mistake for the art of improv. it turned it into light entertainment. it took the artist of the improviser and turned him into a theatre athlete. one to go through the motions of silly games to earn approval by voting audience members. not only is said competition demeaning for the performers, but it is also detrimental to the show as a whole. the idea of competition is inherently egotistical. egos are terrible for improv. the actor should be thinking about the group and the show above themselves, not about being bertter than the other performers.
some more experienced improvisers do okay in a competitive show environment, because they understand that the competition is really just the grease of the show and not the reason for the show. but oftentimes, the younger or more self-important performer will lose sight of this or ignore it completely. having had plenty of experience seeing this first hand as i performed with a competitive troupe in my younger days, i noticed that far too often the show would be injured by someone attempting to win the game of the show rather than promote the improv. it always ended poorly.

such are the meandering thoughts that spun through my head as i watched the blackhawks slowly skate from the ice, having, in a sense, just agreed to disagree with the phoenix coyotes. competition is not performance and the two don't belong on the ice together or in a theatre.

on a sidenote, the first time i went to IO i overheard a guy behind me talking about how he had discovered this thing online called a blog. but he was annoyed because the guy was talking about "banal shit." "what's the point unless it's funny?" well, this has convinced me to try to be funnier with my blog. i hope that you will notice a marked increase in the number of jokes per paragraph as this blog ages.

thank you and enjoy the weather,
bl

i feel better now

i have recovered from the trauma of the lost blog entry (see below.)

CD: NIA by Blackalicious

my life has been painfully slow and achingly boring recently. this will all change in a matter of days as de bebe will be moving up from our hometoen to join me in housing. i don't know if this is egotistical or just plain garden variety pride, but boy is she lucky to have me.
just kidding.
i'll resume. but first i will repeat slightly to aid in comprehension by you, the faithful blogateer.
i don't know if this is egotistical or just plain garden variety pride but i did something friday that really tickled me. back in austin, tx there's an open-mic performance show of sorts called no shame theatre. it is hosted by the critically acclaimed GNAP! Theatre Projects and is actually part of a franchise of national no shame shows that was birthed in the back of a pick-up truck in iowa. the concept is based on having no shame about whatever you want to perform. every performer gets five minutes and a light and sound tech to do whatever they want. so de bebe, my girlfriend, informed me that she was going to participate as it was her last no shame before moving from austin. which sparked an idea in me. i would perform a no shame piece all the way from chicago. so i emailed her and told her that she wasn't allowed to read the next email, but supposed to print it and put it in an envelope. for my five minutes, she would open it and read. here's what i sent her:

Dear [bebe],
First of all, thank you for doing this No Shame piece for me. Since I moved to Chicago I've been trying to get involved in some improv and theatre related things. As you know, I've had a tough time. Several auditions have turned up no positive results. Some breaks have not gone my way and I've lost sight of why I moved away from the warmth and friends of Austin.

Now, I just sit around my apartment waiting. I watch the limited number of channels I've got on TV. I eat bad, cheap food. I watch old movies I've seen a hundred times. I repeat to myself that I should be somewhere doing something.
I guess you could call it depression. There are lots of causes for depression, say the experts. Chemical imbalance, stress at work, death in the family. For me, it could be the lack of performing, not having a job, or the cloudy, cold grey that covers everything, or the fact that I haven't left my apartment for days. But it's not any of these things. I've been trying to figure out just what has been slowly destroying me and I've got it. YOU'RE NOT HERE.

You came to visit for Thanksgiving. A surprise I never expected. You coming here to visit did so much more than you could ever know. You saved me. I don't know from what, but you saved me. I can't say just exactly what would have happened to me if you hadn't.
While you were here, life was completely different. Things transformed from a meaningless drag of insomnia and sleeping-in to something so beautiful and . . . secure. I knew what to get from each day. Unending love and support. I can't thank you enough for that. For making me feel like a person again.

Then the holidays ended and you went home.

I remained the same jovial, optimistic, well-groomed chap for a couple of days but then it all came back. Feelings of intense doubt, hunger, fatigue. Sometimes I get this strange feeling when I'm watching my court TV shows during the day. I can feel my heart beating. I've never felt it quite so big before. It beats against my lungs and ribs and gently jerks my torso. I remain still on the couch to see how long it will last. Eventually, I can hear it faintly. Then I panic a little and think I'm dying. Is my heart slowing to a complete stillness? Is all the bullshit food I've ever eaten clogging my arteries and slowing the blood flow, choking my heart? Is Judge Judy the last person I'm ever going to see?

The answer to all these questions is no.

The reason I can hear my heart is it's crying. It's crying because you're not here.

You're moving up here to Chicago next week and I honestly don't know what I would do if you weren't. Your presence makes me a better person. You give me faith. You give me warmth. You give me salad and make me eat it. You are something truly amazing.

I am in love with you, [bebe]. I want you to know that you are the most important thing in my life and I'm sure you always will be. Please get here soon. My heart can't cry itself to sleep many more times.

[bl]


she said it went well and i gushed to hear she felt the same about me. i wish i could have seen her. i love watching her perform. she's very controlled and intentional, specially when she does movement stuff. graceful, sensual. mmmm.

well, anyway, i don't know if there's a lesson here. i just wanted to share my letter with whoever reads this damn thing. there's probably something really interesting/important in here about performance and the notion of self and body image, possibly even gender roles and declassification.
but i think i'd like to just leave this alone as a theatre piece.

pretentiously yours,
bl

suck

well, earlier i had this really long nice entry about how great the second city e.t.c. show, Pants on Fire, was. but when i tried to upload it, the blogger site crashed and i lost the whole entry. it took me about an hour to write and it was really good, too. so when you're doine reading this, sit back and pretend you just read something incredibly eloquent and uplifting. we'll all feel better after this atrocity.

sometimes i don't know which is worse; counter-terrorism or blogger.com

sincerely
bl

a quick one

this is a quick one

CD: American Recordings by Johnny Cash

So, my dad was here for thanksgiving to pay me a visit. hey, dad. i think you're the only one who reads this thing, so exclusive hey to you. anyway, he loves tv and i'm kind of trying to ween myself off of it. i want to get more into learning musical instruments, going for walks to slim down, and masturbating. so i haven't gotten cable because i want to explore other facets of life. don't get me wrong, i love tv. i think it was actually very instrumental in teaching me a lot of lessons as a child. sitcoms and movies actually offer great moral advice on the whole. and of course, cinemax does help with the whole masturbation thing. BUTT, there's more to life...
so anyway, the dad wants to get an antenna so we can get local stations while he's in town. this makes sense. it hadn't even occurred to me, because i can be dense. got it. hooked it up. now scoping through the channels is one of the funniest experiences i have every day. i get 13 channels altogether; 4 major networks, fuzzy though they may be. i get WB, UPN, and WGN. now these are by and large shitty channels. but they all have one thing over the other 6 that is important to tv viewing. they're in english. would you believe i have three spanish channels, one asian grab-bag channel (the nationality changes,) one israeli channel, and the African Heritage Network which is sometimes in English. i also get PBS which is defintely hit or miss and tonight there was a German show on. what the hell am i supposed to do.
oh, and tonight i was flipping through and i couldn't believe my eyes, MTV 2. amazing. let me point out, however, it wasn't MTV... MTV 1. it was the second best thing i was afforded. so, i watched it for about ten seconds just thinking about what video was next and how cool it was that i could see something i really like, music videos. then i realized the video that was on was Jay-Z. i hate bad hip-hop. especially bad hip-hop ghost written by cajuns. i tried to relax and sit it out, because i knew if i changed the channel the signal would never return. i began to clench my teeth and squeeze the remote. i heard it creak and i decided with a sigh that it wasn't worth it to break the remote so i changed the channel and watched a ping-pong match on the asian channel. it was a little Japanese boy vs. a taller Chinese boy. it was exciting and interesting for about two minutes. then i masturbated.

i realize now that tv just takes away from my precious masturbatory time. i think i'll smash the antenna... tomorrow. it's too cold to move right now. i guess i could masturbate. it's never too cold for that.

sorry, dad
bl

more catch-up

well, in an attempt to catch up a little, i will again jump out of chronology because i am pretty excited about a show i saw very recently.

CD: the ghosts that haunt me - crash test dummies

but first, a few observations i made today. i was at the grocery store, cranky for the usual, recent reasons (cold, lonely, no improv outlet, etc.) and i go to pay for my items. i make it to the express lane and i'm pleased as punch to see there's only one guy in front of me and his stuff is already rung up. he's an older fella, pretty common in my neighborhood. around here you're either old or gay. strangely though, you're never both. which brings to my attention, i've never met a gay person over 40. do they just change their mind later on? that's weird. i would guess that about 90% of homosexuals are between the ages of 18 and 30. i don't know if that's a shitty thing to say. i'm pretty sure it isn't considering i have no problem with gay people. some of my best friends were gay. but they seem to have disappeared.

anyway, back to the old man at jewel-osco. he's not gay, did we get that far? so he's rifling through this small stack of ones and he hands them to the clerk and i'm thinking, "what, no change purse?" as soon as that thought is done, out comes the purse attached to a long chain that's hooked to his person. as if this is really something to protect. he must know something i don't. he must know that every geriatric, gay junkie in my neighborhood always goes for the 9 cents and foregoes the wallet. better chain it to my suspenders.
he fishes through the purse as i shoot the clerk this pitied look of empathy. he returns an awkward eye-shift and scrunches his lower lip into his upper lip. after about a fucking hour the guy hands over the remaining 49 cents on his total and it occurs to me. WHERE DO THESE PEOPLE GET CHANGE? i have a jar full of change at home because i buy things with paper money and leave the store. this guy's never received change ever. EVER. where does he get it? he must be robbing old ladies' change purses. they should really chain those things down. they should chain them to their wallets. then they'd be safe.

then i went to office depot to get some supplies for XMAS presents for the fam. as is typical when i am not at home, i get the urge to use the restroom. i don't know why that is. never at home, but always at barnes and noble and sometimes at wal-mart. i've lived in my new apartment for exactly one month tomorrow and i haven't even bought toilet paper. if it's been a couple of days with no activity, i just go to home depot and i'm golden. so, i'm in the stall at office depot (home depot was too far away) and i glance over at the graffiti. "DOWN TO THE LATIN KINGS" it just kind of goes through me and i sit there for a couple seconds and then it hits me. what thug is at office depot scrawling propaganda on the walls? does anyone not have a home office these days? these kids barely go to school. what are they doing here? "Yo, I gotta pop in the O-Depot to grab up a business card holder and some glue stick."

CD change: Johnny Cash at San Quentin

now for the actual purpose of this blog. some thoughts on a show i saw sunday night. so, IO (Improv Olympic) is supposed to be THE place for improv right now in chicago. and after the bullshit surounding this whole Dept. of Revenue shakedown to stop small theatres from producing, it's one of the only venues that offers a consistent menu of improv. it's legendary. amazing people have played there and been taught there. it's second in success only to second city, the grand-daddy of them all. but IO has remained a little more hip that SC. they haven't slipped over the years as much. of course, this is all second hand knowledge. i've only recently seen them both work and have never seen anything prior to this fall. but, it makes sense.
anyhow, i finally went to IO. As is the typical problem with Chicago theatre, I am put off by the high ticket prices. i haven't been able to adjust to spending so much on something i know nothing about. i'm cheap. but because i have to be. $52 for steppenwolf, $40 for blue man. even $12 for the prime time IO show. i just can't spend it.

i had heard great things about a group called four square and i noticed on the IO web site that they were doing a show that very day for only $5. $5. that's more like what i'm used to. so, i put on my zebra mittens and hopped the train down to wrigley field (still not used to walking by such a huge chunk of history) and payed my five bucks. the place was nearly empty. i was on time. i sat there and waited for the show to start. i had forgotten that an opening act was playing. so that happened and it was hit or miss, probably because of the format which is really excellent but hinders the show. it's called lottery and they have a core of about five players and they add people from the audience that are current IO students. pretty cool but obviously lacking ensemble and decent pacing. i have forgotten a lot of that show. they were done and one of the players stepped forward and said, "please stick around for the funniest improv show in the city, four score." my eyes got wide. wow, the funniest improv show in the city. this is the improv mecca of the free world (discluding canada, of course.) this show has to be great now. or is it just one of those professional courtesies like when conan o'brien says, "we've got a great show tonight, bette midler is here?" you know, just something you're supposed to say.

so i just chilled for a bit. a quick note about the audience. it swelled to capacity right around now. i couldn't believe that the house had become completely full over the last 45 minutes. i've never seen that happen during a show. usually at my shows they begin to dwindle over time until everyone is gone and that's when we know the show is over.

and so, to a full house a man walks out and says that four square will be starting in about five minutes. he looks familiar and i'm trying to figure out who the hell he was. he disappears and i remember he's a dude from the main stage at second city. hmm. the show starts and these four low-middle aged guys come out and take a suggestion. another one is a guy from the second city e.t.c. stage. they did their show and it was fantastic. i was very impressed with the subtle ensemble, the quick wit and the range of character, particularly peter grosz, the e.t.c. feller. they did a kind of free flowey organic improv trip that was very skillful and at times slightly dramatic. good improv has that, you know. it has comedy and drama. just as good drama has both. a lot of improvisers make that mistake. they think every second has to be super funny and highly interesting. these guys, veterans that they are, have mastered the ensemble improv show.

it turns out they are all second city players, the other two in touring companies. which makes me wonder, how come second city has such a slack reputation to local performers? there are a few reasons that come to mind which i will explore in a later entry about the stupendous e.t.c. show i saw called pants on fire.

as for four square, i happened to see their one year anniversary show. they've been doing this sunday 11:15 slot for a full 52 weeks because their paying second city gigs only allow them a little free time. i know how special anniversaries can be in improv troupes and i'm a pretty sentimental guy, so that kind of makes me gushy. i'm glad i was there to share the experience with the troupe and the other hundred some people that were packed into there. i only hope all my other new improv experiences are as enlightening as this was.

one things for sure; this sunday late night show was definitely worth the $5 i'm used to paying.
i feel like a reporter after that line. bearded lamb for action 7 news. back to you Conchita Contreras.

bl (up with the latin kings)