wubbakraken

Hey folks,

So next Sunday (14th), my brothers and I are gonna be participating in the Tour de Cure, a charity bike ride raising money to help cure diabetes. To that end, if any of y'all were down for it, I'm looking for donations to the cause. To sponsor me, visit main.diabetes.org/site/TR and click the Sponsor Me button in the middle somewhere.

Thanks!

Improv show again, this Saturday (er...tonight), 2135 Broadway, Oakland.  8 & 9pm, and then just Mia & me at 10.  And another one next weekend (Sat. 30th), but no two-person stuff then.

So this Saturday's improv show (April 25th, 8pm, 2135 Broadway, Oakland, one block north of the Paramount theatre) will also include a 2-person long-form show featuring me & Mia.  It will be totally under-rehearsed, which means it will be totally awesome.  If you only go to one improv show a year there's something terribly wrong with you, but this would be the one.  Let the word go forth.

While I'm at it, I have an improv show this Saturday, July 28th at Fort Mason Centre Building D.  At least I think it's D.  There won't be very many people either in the audience or in the show, but if that won't make you self-conscious and you have nothing better to do, come on down!  It's at 8pm...the troupe director is talking some crazy nonsense about having a 10pm show also, but don't feel obliged to stick around that long, just come for the 8 o'clock and leave when you feel like it.  You might be the only one there, how special will that make you feel?

Or you could wait til August when things ought to pick up.

What could inspire me to break my year and a third of blog silence?

Only this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epoetv%2Ecom%2Fvideo%2Ephp%3Fvid%3D19841

WoW toons explain what the internet is for:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7997646050642417046&q=world+of+warcraft

Check it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vaekon-Gz4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthelastlaughsf%2Ecom%2Fblog%2Ephp

The latest video from the Last Laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6bb_eYqxfE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthelastlaughsf%2Ecom%2Fblog%2Ephp

Fans of "hunting accidents" should definitely check this out.

Everybody should check out our latest video:

http://www.youtube.com/v/dN_3WJaqlwE

Yes, I'm in it. No prizes for guessing which character.

Well, we filmed the Greenspan music video this weekend. We being Martin, the crazed Argentine/Armenian director of the piece, me (Professor Charles Stuart Whiggamore, BaD), Casey (4Tune 5Hundred...Thousand), Wylie (Richie B. Richer, a white Rasta), Kevin (Jed, a hillbilly), innumerable extras culled from Speech & Debate kids, and poor long-suffering Angela, who is now a featured artist on the recording because Casey and me, bless our hearts, just don't cut it as "girlies."

Saturday went super-well, despite the rain; we went guerrilla-style and invaded Dwinelle, previously Forensics territory (the public speaker kind, not the police investigation kind), but, by the end of the day, firmly in the Greenspan camp. We gave them hardcore economics rap like they ain't nevah SEEN. And Wylie is my new hero for pulling off repeated takes of the new Jamaican verse which even I can't do in one straight go.

Today, or rather Sunday, however, was a lot of waiting in the cold for people to show up. My "Whig" regalia meant a lot of "typical day in Berkeley" pictures taken with strangers, mostly when Angela had the dreadlock wig/hat on. And only one person made the connection between my costume and Presdient's Day, which shows just how important the holiday is to the youth of today. Sadly, I was a big chicken in terms of recruiting extras. Eriq came out and rounded us up a few though, and after that things went OK.

All we need to shoot now is Casey lookin' pimp, and then me riding him and him spanking me. And girlies dancing. You know, the usual malarkey.

And then next week I get to try my hand at editing the video, by which I mean making Rachel do it while I complain about how it isn't as perfect as my Vision. So if I wind up dead at 28, you'll all know why. With any luck, it will be shown posthumously at Sonoma State on Mar. 10 and/or at Berkeley on the weekend of Mar. 24-26. Check it.

The Last Laugh is shooting the crowd scenes for the music video of the Alan Greenspan rap on Sunday Feb. 19th on the UC Berkeley campus sometime between the hours of 9am and 5pm. If anyone I know or anyone you know or anyone someone you know knows is at all interested in being a part of it, please have them contact me as soon as possible because we need a ton of extras. You wouldn't have to be there the whole time, and basically we just need people to cheer for me and then march around campus agitating for the reinstatement of Alan Greenspan and picking fights with pipsqueak speech and debate losers who are infesting the campus that weekend and rendering my room reservation attempts null and void. Little bastards.

Yeah so come on down. Alan Greenspan wants you.

On Tuesday, Last Laugh had our first show, which, considering that it was our first one and that the space was a tough one (Porter Dining Hall...the UCSC eating place, not the actor...Annie, that was funniest part of the show for me), went pretty well. The audience seemed to enjoy it, though Santa Cruz audiences are usually generous with their appreciation. But it may have been actually good, too...I couldn't tell you because I was too busy performing. It is so often the way... Oh, and Mike, thank you for coming all the way out to Santa Cruz to see it! Your support is always welcome...no WoW in-jokes this time, I'm afraid, though. Maybe next time..

Yeah so that was Tuesday. And then today the New York Times had a review of the Squeezebox 3, the current main product of Slim Devices, right on the front of the Business section. And the review was extremely favourable. The article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/technology/circuits/09pogue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Check out the video link under the Multimedia heading on the left-hand side. It's frankly hilarious.

So now we are trying to sell more players than we can conceivably make. Again. Whee!

Anyway, that's the abbreviated goings-on of Alan these days. Future happenings: filming the Alan Greenspan rap in Berkeley, Feb. 18-19. Y'all come on down...hopefully we will be in 22 Warren if all goes as I am trying to plan it to go. Rehearsals for our 20/30min version of Princess Bride. And our next confirmed show, hopefully featuring both of the above, Mar. 10 at Sonoma State.

...oh, and those of you who haven't seen this absolutely MUST.

Especially George, but really everyone. It's genius.

http://www.drunkreport.com/reports/brokeback.future.htm

So my cult hit, the Alan Greenspan rap (Alan Greenspan's World/Bring Back the G-Span) is going into production as a music video in the next couple of weeks. And the video will need extras to be my/Ally G.'s adoring fans (which shouldn't be too hard for anyone), so if you want to be part of that let me know. Actually, I'll just let you know all the details when everything gets finalised. Hopefully we'll be shooting the video in Berkeley next weekend, but that's not set in stone yet.

Also, the website for my new improv/sketch film troupe is live, or so I am told. Except that I just now checked and it isn't really. But by the time you read this it should be! So go to http://www.thelastlaughsf.com (I wrote the restaurant review, but that's probably obvious). I am outrrrrageously hot in that car commercial, n'est pas?

And our first show is at 8pm this Tuesday, Feb. 7th in Porter Dining Hall, UC Santa Cruz. If you can get there around then, that'd be awesome!

And if you can't, there will be more shows at places probably closer to where most of you reading this live, or whatever it is you do these days.

Well I had my last Pan Theatre show tonight. Thanks Angela, Mike, Kyle, Paul, and John (that's right, half of the Beatles came! including one of the dead half!) for comin' out and representin'. As far as I could tell, it was a pretty good show. Apparently, for me, it's easier and more fun performing when people that I know are in the audience, even though I think that logically, that shouldn't be the case. I mean, I theoretically ought to be MORE nervous because I will actually see those people again so there's more pressure to perform well, but it never seems to work out that way. Instead, I actually care about performing well, and that seems to work for me. With an audience to whom I have no connection, I am more liable to turn in an "I don't give a shit" performance. Whereas when there are three people with whom I just ran through Sunken Temple killin' undead trolls n' shit in the audience, I can ramble on about how mages die all the time and be cool with that.

On the other hand, of course, I also have given a few of my best performances in front of a huge number of strangers. So that works too. I guess it just boils down to me needing pressure to inspire me to greatness. Wow, that's pretty trite. Who knew I was capable of such drivel? Noone answer that.

Oh, don't mind me, I'm just babbling because I'm still wired from doing improv. Usually I babble at Angela but then she calls me on it like she did at Naan n' Curry tonight and that's no fun. So I'm going to babble to everyone reading this instead. Feel free to blame her (I love you sweetie, kiss kiss).

The other reason for me writing this is I have been struck by loghorrea again. This at least is not Angela's fault, this is Last Laugh's fault, people keep making me write things which would be good except right now I recognise that I am only capable of writing crap so here I am woohoo! Suckas.

Really I should be working on that sleep debt thingy I've been accruing but clearly THAT's not going to happen.

I suuuuuck at keeping journals. I can tell it's bad when I start boring myself like I'm doing now. And if it's boring to me, it must be stupefyingly dull to everyone else.

Oh well, at least I'm not writing about work like I almost did last week before I realised what I was doing and deleted it. They already get eight hours a day from me, more or less: less if you count only the time I am actually working, but much more if you count all the time it takes me to get ready for, go to, stay at, return from, and restore my soul after work, and I'll be damned if they're getting journal entries too because although they pay me more than I am worth, they'll never take my FREEDOM!!!!!

Oh wait, they did. Sigh.

That's OK, though, I'm going to be famous. Come see my UCSC show Tuesday after next to see why. Eriq and Martin made me look so hot in the car commercial that you're all gonna be jumpin' outta your pants. That metaphor is so appropriate, you don't even know. I just hope the outtake isn't as indecent as Martin claims it is because the parking lot outside the Lawrence Hall of Science at midnight is not exactly the most flattering environment for certain types of wardrobe malfunctions if you know what I mean and I think you do.

So I have left my old improv troupe (Pan Theatre) to commit myself more fully to my new one (Last Laugh) and in a vain attempt to stave off the effects of sleep deprivation. Elanor and I can swap stories about the delights of that pursuit.

My final performance in Pan colours will be at 8pm this Saturday, Jan. 28th, at the Blue Bear Theatre in Building...er, D I think? of Fort Mason Centre, San Francisco, as I think I may have mentioned before (see comment on sleep deprivation, above).

Also, Last Laugh has a website, and I will tell you where that is when it goes officially live on Friday...oo the anticipation, so palpable. Anyway, on it you will probably be able to see what sorts of things I have been doing with all the time I have not been spending sleeping or seeing any of you. And we perform in the Porter Dining Hall at UCSC at 8pm on Tuesday, Feb. 7, which is the one after next Tuesday I believe. And I definitely recall mentioning that before, and I am likely to do it again, so be forewarned.

There will also be further performances coming to a campus near(er) you, the specifics of which I will let you know at a more appropriate time. Shh! Our Enemy's ears are everywhere. The oyster wears a yellow raincoat.

I had something else to say but I done plumb forgotted it. Oh yeah...go buy vibrators from Slim Devices because I LIKE TO MAKE MONEY!!! HIGH FIVE!!!

I hereby Declare myself a refounding Member of the Whig party. It has been Absent from American Politics for far too Long...since roughly 1856 I hear, which means that this, the Sesquicentennial of its Demise, is rather Appropriate for its Refounding, n'est pas? Sadly, its Origins are anti-Royalist and Protestant, whereas I am an absolute Monarchist with pro-Catholic Sentiments. Still, the current Democratic Party was pro-Slavery, so Origins Shmorigins. Also, both of the only two Whiggish American Presidents (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor) died practically within Minutes of taking Office, but this suits my anti-authoritarian Bent. How can I be an absolute Monarchist AND anti-authoritarian you ask? Why, by Contradicting myself, of course! Try it sometime, it is Fun.

Because I am lazy, this Declaration will probably be about it as far as my refounding Effort goes. But I enjoyed capitalising random Words.

Thank you for your Attention.

I recentlyish (well, last month, which is recently if you consider how often I update this thing, which is never) joined a new improv / film / comedy / whathaveyou troupe / company / collective / younameit called The Last Laugh. Our first show is in Santa Cruz on February 7th (yes, a Tuesday...). Porter Dining Hall. 8pm. Check it?

In other related news, I'll be performing with Pan Theatre at the Blue Bear Theatre in Fort Mason Centre, San Francisco on January 28th (yes, a Saturday...). At 8pm. Check that also.

In other not totally unrelated news, I am the sleepy. Czech it.

That cat head is freakin' awesome.