new cam

new camera for xmas. first picture from that, slightly altered. more to come.

b

let's go smoke some marijuana

hi. i don't smoke pot. but i'm around actors and comedians a lot and some of them think it is part of the job. here's my question; why can't they just call it smoking pot?
it seems that each group has its own little code words and lingo for smoking pot. "hey, todd. you wanna go walk the dog with me?" these people truly are paranoid and they're not even high yet.
i heard someone call it playing cards one time. i chimed in, "ooh yeah, i'd love to play cards." my friends made downcast glances and said they weren't actually going to play cards. one of them cleared their throats and said, "we're uh... going to change the filter on our A/C unit."
it's even worse over the phone.
"so, toby, you get that baby-changing platform i asked you about? uh-huh. uh-huh. how much? a whole pound?!? . . . uh.. of baby changing . . . platform? yeah, that sounds great... uh-huh. $11,000?!? alright. i DO love my newborn . . . pot-smoking addiction."
like the govt is listening in on every stoners cell phone.
"he just said 'jane.' he might be talking about pot." "LET'S ROLL!"
these people think they're the guy in goodfellas. he never took calls or made calls. he only got information from his right hand man who had to make calls from pay phones in the rain.
like the govt has nothing better to do. well, maybe they don't.
I actually overheard someone at a party the other day refer to it as online banking. i laughed at them and called them stupid.

but i've got to admit it is pretty clever.
b

question

why does al green look like nipsy russel?

everything's ok

b

it's flowin

-----------------------
i think i'm a river
all damned and trickling through
getting smaller as i go
i can't get bigger
toe jammed and tickling you
setting squaller to your toe

the hook is right here
to hoist and place ashore
getting smaller as i go
i took the knight gear
the forced mandate is tore
setting squaller to your toe

D and D is not my bag
keep the die forever more
getting smaller as i go
you're like meat on a pole
surrounded by hungry voles
i'm just an inchworm
setting squaller to your toes

I WANT YOUR BEAVER.
to remove my damns.
damn the toes.
---------------------

wasn't that clever?

and now i do christmas gift things.
b

Overheard on the XM

on the ride home today:

1.
Cuz Privacy is my middle name.
My last name uh is Control.
No, my first name ain't Baby,
It's Janet; Miss Jackson if you're nasty.
~ Janet Privacy Control
2.
If you put two and two together,
You would see what our friendship is four.
~ Spice Girls (Baby Spice)

just had to share that.

b

kwanza and the rule of threes

kwanza has benifited from the rule of threes.
it's a joke as old as time. the one where you say "merry christmas" and then "happy chanukah" with a despised tone. haha, hilarious. *sarcasm toned*
sure, the majority of the US is christian and lots of people who don't even consider themselves christian celebrate christmas. mentioning chanukah as a joke in relation to christmas is pretty hack and cliche. but even worse off than that is the third cousin to both of these holy days. kwanza. now i don't remember ever hearing about kwanza until i was around 10 years old. ellen claighorn did one of her equally tired queen shenequa monologues on the news and mentioned it as the overlooked "african christmas."
but now it seems every comedian, talk show host, wacky uncle, radio DJ, ad agency, and politician has seen fit to apply the rule of threes for this comedy gangbuster. since we all know the rule of threes, i will continue on. if it weren't for this rule of comedy, i don't feel that the general populace would even know it exists. of course, we mock what we don't understand and i'm sure every american's working knowledge of kwanza is very limited. for instance, i think i'm misspelling it every time i write it.
i'm glad it's gotten a little bit of face time cuz diversity is sweet. it's just lame that it's at the hand of people who are mocking it. and it's not just that they're mocking it. it's that they're mocking it again. year after year after year.

every december when it comes time to do the holiday hooters commercial for the radio.
"let's do a kwanza joke."
"oh, great idea, ad agency hack."
sometimes i wish i were at these brainstorming sessions. "yeah, while we're at it, let's do some of that tonya harding material we've been working on for fifteen years. ooh, and don't leave out that topical lindbergh baby joke. always gets 'em."
you can't treat comedy like you treat christmas music. "grandma got run over by a reindeer" is not funny anymore because we've heard it a thousand times. it may still be enjoyable to listen to because it's been a while. the same doesn't hold true for comedy. recall only works a few times. after that i want to kill you for not being original.

man, i'm saucy tonight . . .
b

ps - ad agency man is the name of my new superhero character.

oh, by the way

blasted my pecs today. tomorrow, if we have time i'm going to stop by the Y and see if i can bench 300.

b

big deee-cision time

tomorrow, i turn down a theatre.

so back in aught 4 i started touring my solo improv show and i made three appearances at a certain theatre in dayton, OH called the Quest Theatre which is operated by SmartyPants Theatre Co. well, my shows did pretty well there and periodically i would come back to teach or judge improv competitions. eventually the cupholders also came here and garnered a pretty respectable reputation after only a few shows. dayton has kind of become one of our way points if that's spelled correctly. we can swing by and do a show whenever we have to go out east for one. quick for a good easy buck.

so, the guy that runs it, let's call him Chloe has become a friend of mine as well as a few of the other members in the mainstage cast of the theatre. well, Chloe just had a baby with his wife Julie and she's looking for a little more stability than her current job so she gets one 6 hours away in Michigan. so he has to abandon the theatre. in short, he offered the theatre to the cupholders. ours to run and cherish and repair. he also offered up the big money maker of the operation, the touring shows, which work through an arts organization here in dayton to book shows in high schools and middle schools around the region.

owning a theatre and a successful touring company have always been a dream of mine which is what makes the whole situation so inconvenient for us. we're essentially on our way to Los Angeles to see if we can make anything happen out there. at the most, we'd only be able to run the theatre for 6 months. the theatre itself is not necessarily successful, either breaking even on its own or sucking bonus cash out of the touring company to keep it alive. personally speaking for all of us, it just ain't worth the risk. if we spend the cash to come here, money we're already planning on saving slash spending on a move to austin and then to LA, and things don't work out, we really screwed. so i've had to say no to something that either 1year ago or maybe 3 years from now i would be able to say yes to.

it sucks but i guess dems the breaks, right? i can't expect to win little battles when i'm reaching for taking on the biggest battle of my life. and so tomorrow, i tell Chloe it's an impossibility. it was a tough decision and i have lost much sleep over the last few days trying to calculate all kinds of BS. i'm just glad the deliberating amongst us cupholders is over.

see you in austin, where i will hopefully have no big announcements for you.
b

something you can't touch

every once in a while the good show will happen to you. as the lights go down at the end, you wonder why there has to be any other feeling in the world. nothing can come close to that rush. to know you have succeeded in doing such a difficult task. you have created an original story with your best friends that was dynamic, hilarious, and inspiring. it's a feeling i am constantly chasing like an addict chases his drug. i am forever in pursuit of the notion of extreme sublime prov. saturday, we touched the void... for 17 people in Dayton, OH.

in a way it was upsetting that only so few people saw our show, but in a lot of ways it may not have happened any other way. jon proposed the question at lunch today: if you could go back and erase your past, keeping all of your current knowledge, how far back would you go. you could go back to when you were 10 and relive life from that point exccept have the brains you have now. i immediately said, day 1. bill said he wasn't sure if he wanted to go back at all because he was happy with his life and didn't want to accidentally end up somewhere else than in the very long john silver's of vandalia we were at. i thought about how bored i would be playing with blocks instead of ladies and opted to go back to freshman year of high school. there's definitely a few things i would change but plenty that i would try to keep identical.
for instance:
i maxed out my bench today. haven't touched a bench press since freshman year football in high school. back then, i maxed out at 145. today, i touched another void. i benched 160. tuesday, i will return to the Y by my grandparent's house here in vandalia, OH and see if i can get 165, nay 170.

may have a big announcement with many brain spillings on the horizon. stay tuned.
reach for your prov.

b

We're Going, Baby

UNDEFEATED 12-0, BIG XII Champs. yeee-uh.

UT is going to the national championship. finally, one of my teams is playing for the big one. the crown jewel of their sport. i can't get enough of the ut football team and i am proud to say it's not fairweather fanning cuz they're my alma mater. i will admit i lost interest in sports during college. i went to one game when i was at ut, i sat 2nd row with my friend jeff and ricky williams, who won the heisman that year, ran for something like three touchdowns. it was pretty cool, but i was entering a strange period of avoiding responsibility to engage in improv. which makes what i'm about to write really cool.
for those of you who have been following closely to the blog over the years, you may remember an idea i had after moving to chicago which was to show the live broadcast of a cubs game with no sound and do comedy commentating over it in a theatre. well, it occured to me not too long ago that i could do the same thing with the National Championship if the horns put themselves in the right position to be picked to play. and they have. and their going to play the team that everyone has wanted them to play all year. i'm more excited than i should be that the game is happening at all but getting more and more excited about the show that i'll be doing during the game. my two loves, ut football and improv all at once.
i'm going to do the play-byplay and my buddy and new longhorn fan mike d is going to do the color. we're going to have people improv dubbing new dialogue and music for commercials, sideline reports from matthew mcconaghey played by mike joplin, and live music at half time. there are rumblings of hotdog and beer vendors who will be in the theatre making it happen. it's gonna be huge. and i actually don't care if ut wins or loses cuz i know they're do their best against a damn good team. and hopefully, we'll squeeze some chuckles out of our audience.

won this doing my solo show in missouri in 2003. horns are bred to be champs.

b