Comedy Fusion

the comedy festival.
i'm really determined to get some pictures of this thing, because it is ridiculous. something i actually feel kinda good about is - well, we're definitely earning the money we are making. we have written scenes and stuff that are occassionally sprinkled into our presentation, and we get to do improv, which is always fun, but essentially, we are carnival barkers that get people to our section to support a product. i'll tell you more about the actual gig later, because it's worth posting about. it is, in not so many words, exactly what i expected. no one else did, and that makes me laugh. our voices are scratchy with recycled air, as we jump up in our rotation every half an hour to draw attention for the duration of 10 hours. something about me likes it. it's a sick thing to like. it feels like being a bad comic.

the best thing is that because of conditions, we have lost it at different points, one by one. shad lost it bad yesterday and chatted with a roving puppet for almost 20 minutes, never looking at it's puppeteer. i ripped on him for it until the dragon came over to me, and i could not deny the magic of this thing. i don't even love puppets or anything, but this thing was for Real. apparently, the puppeteer works for Disney and stuff too, so it's legit, man. this Dragon is real. Klepper, my tag-teammate, lost it yesterday when he realized he was talking about how much money he placed on the OSU/Michigan game this weekend while on mic. i lost it (hardest - i had several) when i picked up a mic and started singing an improvised music montage about the car we were promoting to the tune of 5 morphing songs (courtesy of MD, Chuck Malone). we all started crying, including me, who tried to sing through serious giggles while a crowd looked at us like animals in a zoo.

nicest part of the day is that the act right next to ours is there with Sierra Mist (delicious), a lounge act that does mash-ups, essentially. It's very well done and funny - sorta like Velvet Tom, for you Chicago folk. I stared at them for a few minutes and recognized the guy because I was sure he was from iO. then i thought the girl was familiar, and then found out it's the woman who plays Meredith from NBC's Office. his name is Scott - also in Anchorman and a teacher at iO west, and she's Kate. they were very warm and nice, and their act is called "The Lampshades". since they have lots of cross-over with SC/iO chicago, we knew a lot of the same people, and we made a pact to hang at some point this week. it was 50% nice to know they were doing the same thing we were.

new friends, lost voices, ridiculous days. more. more to come.