my mom told me i need to write in my blog more.

b

ha

cubs are in rain delay.

lease your body

b

whatever happened to the 8-year old pope

what's with bringing in a guy to be the king of your organization who's past the average life span of humans? this new guy is 78. i'm 25 and all i can remember is an old white-haired pope boppin around in a bullet proof mercedes and letting people kiss his ring in shea stadium. a dude who can barely speak enough to smite half the world's religious beliefs. i will say i was saddened by john II's death but only because it means so much to so many. personally, it means little to me. it's a lot like the presidential elections around here. they're not gonna shake things up and they're rarely gonna do things that i think make sense. that's just a function of politics and religion which seem to have blurred together over the past few years. but i digest.
i realize the cardinals want to make sure that the guy they get is really serious about it, but why keep picking guys who can't even feed themselves and go on respirators a month after they're hired. whatever happened to just getting a real young fiery guy who's gonna shake things up and modernize the church a little. Pope Benedict VII was the first to install plumbing in the vatican and he was 19 when he was elected.* Pope Joseph III had his army equipped with this new thing called guns back in the day.** he was a real progressive.***
so what's wrong with gettin a guy in there who's gonna turn this religion on its head for a bit, respect the old guys and the old ways. ya know, attack some surrounding areas just for their gold like the old days.**** BUT still be aware of how important it is to modernize things a bit. take back everything the catholic church has said about women's rights, gay marriage (or actually, gay existence), and evolution. have sinead o'connor play a benefit for AIDS research.***** you know you wanna. get over yourself and help this world become a better place. spreading your "words" to the four corners of the globe so you can easier control and anglicize them is not what we should have in mind.******

god bless us, everyone
goodnight,
b

* - Totally nonfactual.
** - Guy didn't even exist.
*** - see **
**** - I'm pretty sure this actually happened.
***** - This joke******* is in poor taste and out of date.
****** - This isn't the first time I've used this footnote joke.^
******* - It's not even really a joke. Just a crappy thing to say.
^ - and it won't be the last.

coincidence comedy

cupholders had a show the other night at a local bar here in chicago. we did our set which was only 1/4 of the total improv to be had for the evening. the last group to go was a tight two-man group who i've seen around town. they're experienced and organic which leads them to some great discoveries through the course of the improvising. at one point they did a tribal like gibberish thing where they drifted offstage to a side wall where the bar had hung a mirror with a devil like thingy on the bottom of it. they adored it like a god and got consistent little laughs. then one of them accidentally bumped into the door just offstage that lead out onto the street. it opened and they used it as a moment of discovery. they ventured out into the street and the door nearly closed all the way behind them. the room was silent as the audience waited to see what would happen next. just then a waitress entered the room through a door which had previously been closed and thinking that the show was over asked at full volume, "somebody order a BLT?" the entire room erupted with laughter and she felt a sudden rush of embarassment. she tried to duck back into the door to escape whatever hell she had just entered when someone raised their hand and was given the sandwich. the actors re-entered to the tail end of the huge rolling laugh that had consumed the audience. the timing could not have been scripted any better. the improvisers themselves had no idea that it even happened which made it funnier for us, the audience. we knew something they didn't. something that made their set better.
it was a great moment of coincidental comedy that proves that improv is not always about skill. sometimes it's just about pure luck.

now, back to work, you

b

and a go-cart for free

-view from my window-

we have a next door neighbor who is a bit eccentric. he has a really old honda crx just chillin in the backyard. bill asked him what the deal with it was. he said some jumbled chinglish about trying to install a new engine in it and went back to welding his next exhaust system on his truck. real cool dude.
we rented gran turismo 4 to celebrate getting the business' taxes done and mailed on friday. we spent the better part of friday night modifying cars and working our way up through the ranks of the game. saturday bill goes back to the kitchen to get a beverage. ace is at the back porch. henry, the eccentric chinaman neighbor has just given ace his old go-cart. say what? a go-cart for free. every adolescent boy's dream and we don't have to pay for it. sure, we're in our mid twenty's, but that doesn't mean we don't want to do time trials in the back alley behind our house.

-under my porch-

won't start. henry keeps giving pointers over the fence. "try spray on carborateur," handing a can of spray gasoline to bill. doesn't work. "sand spark plug," he says with a broken smile handing some sandpaper over. still no good. it gets dark. we put her away for the evening. go back inside and race and modify our fantasy nintendo cars. bill does research on the internet and calls his genius brother-in-law who can fix anything even if he is 1000 miles away. we go to play soccer sunday and bill stays behind to work on the cart. we come back and he's driving it through the alley. he got it a new spark plug and did a couple other little things. changed the oil. got all three of them horses running. now there's talk amongst the group about getting another engine to power the right wheel as the current one only pulls the left wheel and some other mods. i should ask bill if we can turbo charge it and get it up to like 30 horsepower. that would just be too fast and dangerous. but we're still little boys inside and that sounds like it might be perfect.

mike and jon after taking it out on clark street and "opening it up."
notice the upside down corvette body. it's supposed to go over the whole thing but i think we like the look of it just stripped down right now. we should paper mache a delorean body on it and see what happens when we push it up to 88 mph. then we'd really be the dorks of the block.
here's a few questions: which one of us will get hurt first? who will get hurt the worst? and who will get laid because we have a go-cart first?
probably ace, ace, and jon.

take it to heart,
b

lumberg, cubs, cruises, and dayton

so i left out that i met gary cole who played lumberg in office space sunday night as well. he's also a steppenwolf ensemble member and a cool dude.
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the cubs game was canceled today due to moist conditions. so they're doubling up tomorrow. i'm going to work both games. if i can get beer twice, i'll really be booking some bank.
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heard back from one of the cruise companies that could get the cupholders onto a ship. one dude at the firm who books entertainment for several cruise liners said he really liked our press kit and that a booking might come our way for the end of the summer, unfortunately they don't want to give up three cabins, so they might allow space for four of us, which would be alright i guess. if we get enough work on different cruises we could just rotate.
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i might be going to dayton in june to do a week-long intensive workshop culminating in a show. two or three hours each night of the week with a show on friday. all one group the whole time. that would be sweet. they also might hook me up with a kids theatre group to do a summer camp thing during the day that same week.

lumberg, cubs, cruises, and dayton.
b

the hookup

so i have a hookup. many people i know work at steppenwolf here in chicago and i have been privelaged enough to attend some shows for free and some parties with free food, drinks, and quasi to full on famous people. a while back i went to see the opening for a show that was pretty good. we went to a spanishey place for a the little opening reception afterwards and i had free hors d'ouvres and cokes into the wee hours of the evening.
but this weekend blew that out of the water. last night was the night before tonight. obviously.
anyway, at teh wolf they do their play openings on sundays. so last night there was this big fundraising gala and party put on by the wolf to entertain the wealthy donors and ask for more money. actually, there were two parties, one for low level staffers like my buddies and some friends, and one for the wealthy and the famous. we quickly got very drunk on free booze and were dancing before we even knew we were. then we got bold and decided to check out the other party, the big one. so we crossed the street very carefully and snuck in. there on stage was the lieutenant dan band. yes, gary sinise has a band and that's what they're called. AND, they're a cover band. he plays bass. the room was pretty much cleared out as it's a yearly tradition for everything to end up at the smaller interns party anyhow. but there were still some rich people dancing and a lot of minorities bussing tables. the band was pretty good. seeing gary sinise was pretty wierd although his still being on stage kept the illusion alive. we crossed the street again and got word that john malkovich (who is performing in the new play that premiered earlier tonight) was at the intern party. we knew we would see him but it still seemed like a pleasant surprise.
we went upstairs and spotted him hanging out outside the door to the ballroom where the party was going on talking to fellow wolf ensemble member laurie metcalf, probably best know as the sister on roseanne. we shuffled past them and into the dance hall again to dance our little brains out. i was hit on by several gay men. my friends were propositioned by actors and high level staff members, some of the female lot were groped heavily. i met the woman who has made me famous among the offices at the wolf as being the guy who did naked air guitar at an audition. they still remember that and still talk about it. well, as you probably know i didn't get the part but i did leave my mark as it's been nearly a year since that audition and they still talk about it and laugh about it. any press is good press. if they ever come across a script that involves naked air guitar they know who to look for.
took a cab home and slept like a friggin log.
tonight was the opening of the show this whole hullabaloo was about in the first place. the show was good. it was strange to see malkovich in the flesh on stage and off. the reception was at a nice (NICE) italian restaurant where they served us a bunch of little finger foods and a huge gob of amazing tiramisu. saw malkovich again. he waqs approached by several people who spoke to him as if they had been best buddies for years. "well, it was nice talking to you, John," etc. - stuff like that. i was ready to go pretty quick after the dessert. so it made for a nice weekend of largely unproductive experiences. i may not drink for a while considering i still feel tipsy 27 hours later. but it was a cool weekend, and i feel a little more famous and no more wealthy.
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working the cubs game on friday was really nice. i made a boatload of cash in tips and commission selling chicago's own "old style" beer. it was cool. people called me beerman a lot and sometimes just referred to me as "old style." i'll be working tuesday's game as well. we made it back to .500 today with an extra-inning marathon win over the brewers. it might be a long season if we keep hitting the way we've been.
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on a completely unrelated note, i had a brilliant idea the other day while playing playstation football. i know it is a brilliant idea because half the people i tell it to think it's a terrible idea. the other half laugh out loud. i want to put out my debut cd, "Jeremy sings along with the Urban Cowboy soundtrack." it's basically just a recording of me singing and attempting to play various instruments while the urban cowboy soundtrack plays in the background. i'll burn copies off my computer and sell them for $3. i have one buyer i know of already.
on a related note: uncle bob

goodnight angel,
b

11 hours

cubs home opener - 11 hours.
for those not in the know, i am a cubs vendor. i will serve beer and peanuts and angst to the people of the greater chicagoland area tomorrow.

i'm ready.




i will vend the world,
b

rule of threes

there are many ways that something can be funny. and there is a sleu, as well as a slew, of different variations on a funny thing. that is to say, a joke can be told with about a million variables coming into play. timing is important, proximity to other similar jokes, inflection, word choice, placement of the funniest part of the punchline. these as well as about a zillion other things determine to what degree something is funny.
one of the comedic tools on the belt is the rule of threes. in most cases, the third time you try something will be the funniest. this is why most storytelling jokes have instance 1, instance 2 (both merely set-up), and instance 3, where the punchline is delivered.
well, it seemes like other things come in threes, too. and maybe it's just my comedy brain working too much, but it seems like famous deaths come in packs of three. and it specifically follows the pattern of one political figure, one film or music star, and one wild card. usually for the wild card some trumped up media hype BS has made this person fit into the three.
see if you can remember these triplets, almost all occurring within one week of each other:

Ronald Reagan (right wing), Ray Charles (left wing), and Yassir Arafat (fuselage?) [note the use of threes here in the comedy of right wing, left wing (both normal terms), and then fuselage.]

a while back we lost Johnny Cash (somewhat political but really a musician), Warren Zevon (a musician), and John Ritter all within one week. This does not fit the mold except that it is three dudes all at once and they were all pretty cool dudes, you gotta admit, regardless of whether you liked their music or Stay Tuned.

there was also the trio of Christopher Reeve (actor turned political by a horse), Rodney Dangerfield (comic genius who probably had a joke about a horse), and Ken Caminiti (who took so many steroids he was a horse.)

most recently it was Pope John Paul II (said Darwinism is a sound theory), Mitch Hedberg (comic genius who said, "I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that."), and Terry Schiavo (a situation that had me agonizing for a couple days about what was right. Then I realized that I don't know her and it's probably none of my fking business.)
[no use of the rule of threes here because i wanted to avoid a tasteless joke about the only thing Terry Schiavo could say]

so it's nearly true and obviously not a flawless theory but that's what makes it a theory and not a law.
jesus, what am i doing awake?

goodbye,
b
oh yeah, i'm awake to tell you that the cubs won their season opener in arizona having scored in every inning but the 3rd and 9th. this bears repeating. . .


go cubs.