Hey, here's another schweet story, about improv this time!

A few years ago, we (IA) were doing a show in Joplin, MO for a food processing plant. They make the burritos and other microwavables you purchase at a gas station.

Joplin is pretty far south in Missouri, which means the IQ's were impressively low. At one point, we had a volunteer onstage who happened to be the only black employee at the plant. Halfway through the game we were playing, some yokel in the audience shouted out "Don't turn off the lights or we won't be able to see Kenneth (or whatever his name was)". Yeah, it was that kind of audience. They also never got tired of yelling out "Get 'er done!".

The blatant racism could have been a story in itself, as unbelievable as it was, but that night, the gods in charge of weirding us out were feeling frisky.

Going into our second to last game, we needed an audience volunteer to escort one of our players, Keith, out of the room to ensure that he didn't hear the suggestions we were getting for a guessing game. The volunteer's name escapes me, but I'll refer to him as The Intimidator. The Intimidator was 6'5'', probably weighed close to 250, and was wearing a camo hat and shirt. While out in the hallway where the guests of the event could go to smoke, Keith and The Intimidator came upon an unlucky young punk in a red hat. The kid in the hat was chatting up some women in the hallway, and really working at bringing his "A" game.

The Intimidator overheard red hat asking the women if they wanted to see his penis. The Intimidator, proving chivalry is not dead, told red hat to shut the fuck up. Red hat, obviously intoxicated, decided to throw down for his would be hoes. He took his shirt off, approached The Intimidator, and asked if The Intimidator would like to see him whip his penis out. Without hesitation, The Intimidator grabbed red hat's man parts and told red hat that he had his dick now, then queried what he was going to do about it. Red hat did what most of us would do: He wasn't about to apologize to and ask forgiveness from The Intimidator, he just started throwing punches in the general direction of The Intimidator's head. The Intimidator was, of course, unfazed and proceeded to lead red hat around the hallway by his man parts, taking in stride the occasional fist that would actually connect with it's intended target. After a few laps up and down the hallway, they eventually collapsed to the ground, knocking over an ashtray and refocusing The Intimidator's rage, escalating it from leading poor red hat around by his cock and balls to brutally pummeling him for his impolite ways.

It was at that moment that I opened the door to retrieve Keith. I saw what was happening on the ground, but the show must go on. We went back to the stage, finished the game, and cut the show short. We went back to our rooms to share what had happened, and then went out on the town to see what else Joplin had to offer. The answer was not much.

A *little* less poo here.

In the year 2000, a band came together of a mighty improv sort. Birthed from that improv/rock god hybrid was C.R.A.G. (Cunt Rocket Asshole Grenade). Our first and only hit single was titled "Coke Binge". I present it to you here in it's purest poetic form.

By the way, at the time there were tons of poetry sites on the internet giving out awards and throwing crap people had sent them into books. This won one of those awards and is in one of those books. I couldn't tell you which ones, but it tickled me silly that a form e-mail was sent out at all, praising the greatness of "Coke Binge".


Have you ever been on an eight day coke binge?
Then you wake up to discover that you've got no friends,
Cause they stole all your money and they drank all your booze
So you head out for the streets 'cause you've got nothing to lose.

Some days are better than others,
Some days I wanna go home.

So you head on down by the corner store
To meet your friend Pimp Larry and he sells you a whore.
She is big and black and dirty and she gives you the clap,
Should've realized it by the smell of her crack.

Some days are better than others,
Some days I wanna go home.

(bridge)

Maybe things aren't that bad, after all
I've still got my legs unlike Paul,
My mom's new boyfriend, yeah he's kind of a drag.
But I think it's pretty cool the way he pees in a bag,
bag
bag....bag bag bag.
bag bag,
he pees in a bag bag bag bag bag,
bag bag bag,
he pees in a bag....


And he shits in one too.

Sorry, one more poo post.

From December, 2005:

I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about something that afflicts millions of people every year. It cares not if you are young or old, black or white, cool or lame. What I want to talk to you about is itchy butt.

Itchy butt itself is only the beginning. Those people affected by itchy butt are also ten times more likely to fall victim to stink fingers or smelly drawers.

The really sad part is the fact that itchy butt can be avoided, and in some cases even cured. The responsibility lies squarely on your shoulders. Proper education and some preemptive counter measures can be taken.

Find time to talk to your kids frankly about itchy butt. Be sure to tell them the dangers of it, suggest ways of avoiding it, and if need be, relate to them how itchy butt may have affected you at some point in your life.

The best preventative measure that can be taken is to simply shower after every time you take a deuce. Second to that are Cottonelle Fresh Moist Wipes( http://www.cottonelle.com/products/folded.asp ). Keeping these with you and in your home will ensure that you and your loved ones will avoid itchy butt even if you don't have the time to shower after negotiating the release of your little brown hostages.

Thank you for your time, and remember: winning the itchy butt battle is up to you. Your actions could ensure the comfort of the butts of tomorrow.

Do not try this at home.

Here's another blast from the past, originally posted July 31st, 2005. Sorry for more poo subject matter. I'll try to make sure not to include it in the next. Here it is:

Ok, when I was coming up, I did some pretty shitty things to strangers.

To be quite honest, it wasn't limited to strangers. But strangers definitely got the worst of it.

One of such things was the poopy dollar trick. If you're unfamiliar with the poopy dollar trick, here's how it works: The first step is finding some poop. It doesn't really matter where, or whos, though I find that it seems a lot more personal, and therefore more rewarding, if it's your own.

Next, you'll want to find something to carry the poopy dollar in. Any plastic bag will work, including but not limited to: Beef jerky bags or Glads Ziplock bags. The best choice will always be something you can seal up, to avoid the smell of the poo.

Finally, you'll need a dollar bill. Though I've always used $1 bills, it is my belief that an even larger bill would work that much better. Remember, the trick to pulling this off is to feed off of other people's greed.

Once you have all the items necessary, you're almost there. Preperation is 90% of this particular project. Actually carrying it out can be both simple and fun.

Use the bag to hold the poo and slather one side of the bill. Be careful not to get it too close to the edge. If the mark sees a bit of poo hanging out the side, they won't bite. Next, fold the bill in half, poo to poo. Once that's done, all you need do is take the poopy dollar to a public place. I've found that the best places are usually grocery stores. Simply put the dollar near the entrance/exit and wait. Soon enough, some sorry sap will come by and pick up the bill. No matter what they do with it, hilarity will ensue. Some will examine it, freak out and throw it. F-U-N-N-Y. Some people will grab it and quickly jam it in their pocket. F-U-N-N-Y. No matter what the outcome, if you've got plenty of bills, you're bound to have an enchanting night of fun and wonder.

Oh, for Blog's sake.

I have stories, some of which I've shared on other public blogging type things, so I think I'll start posting them here every now and again. This one's just a little over a year old, was relevant to the new job I had at the time:

Ok, so I have this relatively new job, a month or so, and like any other job I have a few bosses.

Let me rewind it a bit, Tarrantino style and explain.

I am working for this company, who will remain unnamed for legal and job keeping purposes, whose main responsibility is canvassing for various causes. Right now, we are canvassing for health care (once again, not saying what we were for, for various legal reasons.). The way the office is set up is one canvass director, basically the top boss, two field managers, secondary bosses, and the canvassers.

We're a new office. We will eventually have 4-5 field managers, but for now we have 2. One of which is going to Albuquerque for a month to cross train, right after the new year. SO, our one remaining Field Manager, the other night, gets the urge to poo. I never asked him the level of poo it was, but it must have been pretty severe, because while we were out, some random guy came out and caught him pooing on the side of his house.

We split up into teams to canvass neighborhoods, and unfortunately, I wasn't with this bowelly challenged soul. The police report said, however, that a man was found to be defecating on the side of a civillian's house. Down the block, when approached, the young man who was in tandem with the defacator, claimed to be in league with him, though denied knowledge of the defecator's defacating.

By the way, the guy that caught him had a gun that he flashed a few times, tucked in the elastic of his sweatpants.

Flash forward 30 minutes later, and I'm ready to be picked up. I hop in the van and immediately tell the first and only story of interest of the night, unaware of what had transpired with my colleagues: "I had to poo so damn bad. I jogged a block to a gas station, but their bathroom was out. Then I went to the Sonic next door, asked if there was anything I could buy that could gain me entrance to their crapper; Sadly there was not. So I walk/jogged a half a mile down the road to a Minsky's Pizza and Pub, where the man didn't even make me buy anything, just let me poop for free."

As it turns out, my innocent story of searching for a place to poo may have sealed this poor defecator's fate. Had we been somewhere that had no accessible or reachable shitter, it might have been different. But my story of overcoming anti-shitism combined with the fact that the guy SHIT ON THE SIDE OF A HOUSE, pretty much all contribute to his career with ******** ***** coming to an end.

Drunk time, which means new post for you-all.

Y'all remember that time you had a pet lizard, but it didn't seem to want to live? It's like, it climbed all over it's cage, but never hunkered down and prepared it's life in a 5"X5" cage made of mesh?

Right, you know the one. It held a chameleon that wasn't very good at chameleoning. That one.

Anywho, I heard a story the other day that made me think of my old lizard, and don't ask me why.

Apparently my Grandmother was watching my young cousin, when my young cousin got out of reach and fell down a tall stairwell.

Needless to say, my Grandma was torn up, but she did what she was ordained to, and took the fallen child to the ER. Once my aunt got there, the doctor had decided that the child was fine, but he "prescribed" a beer and/or wine cooler to my grandmother.

This is where it get's "Tom"y. My grandmother spent 3 hours trying to get hold of the local Catholic priest to see if she would be damned for drinking a beer. After an hour of waiting and no replys, she went ahead and drank a wine cooler. Having done it on her own, without the sanction of the church, 10 minutes everyday is spent between asking forgiveness for her sin and Living her life as well as she can (with the exception of the XFL).

The ol' waiting game.

Hey, guys! Did you hear? There's a recession! The job market's pretty crappy! Strike that, it's extremely crappy!

I finally got all my stuff together to apply for a job. After 3 hours of reworking my resume ("But Tommy, couldn't you have just made a new one in a shorter amount of time?" "Yes." "But why di-" "Shut it."), It was all ready to go, so I sent it out with some sweet cover letters to my future decliners. Then I realized that I had lost an entire job description for one of my previous jobs. Where'd it go? I don't know. Is there any way to fix that? Send them an updated resume, apologizing for the craptastic mistake?

Think I'll just eat some more PB&J.

The obligatory year end/new year post.

I suppose if I truly am making an effort to post here on a regular basis, I'm supposed to do one of these. There's no system in place, so here's some stream of consciousness.

2008- Some good damn times were had.

Improv- Whether shows I saw or was involved in, my biggest regret in the realm of improv, (possibly the whole year) was that I couldn't do more. But the main reason I couldn't was another part of what made the year so great:

Election 2008- OK, so Obama didn't win MO. He won the presidency. I like to also build my own self esteem up by reminding myself that I did work for a whole month in Minnesota, which he did win, and 4 days in Ohio, which he also won. Here in MO, I also worked on getting Jay Nixon in too, so all in all, not that bad a year. The results on election night mattered more to me than they ever have, and I can't decide if it's due to the historic nature of it (not just "yay, a black man was elected"[though some of that, sure], but more "yay, at least 4 years without a complete douche in office") or just the blood sweat and tears given to the campaign. Either way, a great year, with lots to look forward to.

Job stuffs- The end of the year let me down a little bit in terms of what I was expecting to be starting vs. what happened (or didn't[yet]), but I know that 2009 holds much promise for me. The job itself was fantastic, though. I worked with great people with whom I will probably remain friends for life. The people I worked with were the most diverse group I had ever been around, and for that I am also much the wiser. I did end up losing some weight from all the walking and talking, but then immediately put it back on over the holidays. So it goes.

That's all I care to reminice about, now to 2009-

-I'm going to attempt to live mildly healthier on a day to day basis. Not sure yet what all it might entail, but I've got a few ideas. Ideas that will not be posted here because until I decide and commit, I don't want y'all holding me accountable for ideas. You can, however, post some suggestions below.

-I would like to see more of the country (USA, not Green Acres). Odds are decent that this could be accomplished through a new job, but if not, I'm definitely going to look more into at least visiting places where I've never been, probably crashing the occasional couch.

-I would like to see more of another country. I've only been 4-5 miles into Canada, and relatively close to Mexico. This can not stand. This will not stand. Look out world, I'm curious and moderately resourceful.

-I need to keep in contact with people better, on a number of different levels. Not just the ghosts of Tommy's past, but also current confidants. Don't be surprised to receive the occassional summons for a meal or a drink. For this, you can hold me accountable.

Alright, well, that's my year end/new year Thingy McBlogpost. The only thing I left off, because I thought it had been implied over the last few weeks, was that I'm going to update this more often.

Good luck to you all in the new year.

Also, real Merry Christmas.....

Ok, maybe not really real, but real enough for me....

For real with the X-mas decs?

OK...I'll admit. Having Christmas co-exist with a buddy in town from the army is equal parts kick ass and equal parts pain in the ass. Trips the boat, trips to the titty house, place your bets here and there....I ended up losing $80 I didn't have tonight because of friendship. But we had fun.

I did have a magnifimous moment where I thought the woman sitting next to me was actually into me. That moment quickly passed, as they all do, and I realized how small my dating pool was/is.

Anywho, so porn it is!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111one!!!!11!!!!!

Merry X-mas, you buggahs.

So, I didn't make it to the Improv get-together something point something.

Alright, alright, I was the one that put it into the air initially. But a few things have come to light since then. One major one is that MO unemployment takes much longer to kick in than one might think.

The good news is I spent the $50 that was given to me by my aunt tonight at the casinos. So it's going to the kids, which is nice.

I've also had a recent job extended to me to unpack and load furniture for a well known local furniture store while I wait on my "dream job". I quotate it, not because I doubt it's validity as a dream job, but as it's job's ability to take it seriously. Think on that one, Volataire. Really, I want to be a Union organizer. The field in which I enter is important to me.

That field won't be revealed hear right now, but more details will come soon.

Anywhoozle, talk to you all later. I'm busy calculating my my awesome points on a number of Massively Multi-Player Online Games.

Is he for real or for fake? Find out in the latest issue of US.

EXIT 16 ALUMNI SHOW!!!!!!

Exit 16's alumni show was tonight. It's an annual event that I look forward to, if not just to see the talent coming out of high school this year, but to also re-connect with friends from long past. 11 years ago, now.

For those not in the know. Exit 16 is a high school improv troupe that I was a founding member of back in the fall of 1997. Back then, our director was Rich Brown, an English/Theatre teacher Liberty High School at the time. He took advantage of an opportunity to partake in the "Kansas City High School Improv League". Having such a large roster, we had two teams: Improff Broadway and Exit 16. Because of the rules, since both of our teams made it to the finals, we had to join together. And so Exit 16 was born. We won the championship, Rich moved away 2 years later, and Trish Berrong took over as head coach of Exit 16.

I wish it could be a scam, that there could be some way to use these kids for my benefit, and I'm sure there is. But Trish is tied to them in a way that I, nor most of you could be: she actually enjoys driving 20 miles out of her way once a week to coach a ragtag group of hormonal, confused, generally non-commital teens to not only perform, but to excel at the art of Improv. She recieves no stipend, no money, no real acclamations, she does it because not only does she believe in the art more than anyone I've ever known, but she sees in those kids the ability to be anything and everything.

Anywhoozle, It's always fun to have an alumni show, to talk hentai with your buddies, and to see the hentai possibilities in your possible future buddies. I can see Exit 16 going on, not just putterning on, doing recycled crap year after year, but truly growing for years to come.

EXIT 16!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!!!!ONE!!!!!

This always gives me the heeby jeebies

Tiny foot, other body parts removed from tumor in newborn's brain.

I've read stories like this before, and it always reminds me of the Stephen King novel "The Dark Half". It was made into a crappy movie over a decade ago, but it's basically about a kid having the same surgery and growing up to be an author, whose bestselling books have an evil character that the author is killing off when....well, you'll have to read it or see the movie, because it's seriously been more than a decade since I've done either myself.

In other news, pixie haircuts are back. File that under "who cares?".

Jesus Christ, what a great comic.

Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun follows the violent adventures of Jesus and a few special historical guests. Need I say more? Make it to at least page 15, and you will be hooked.

It's strictly online now, but will soon be available for purchase at your local nerdatorium! Check it out, let me know what you think.

More ambiguity on the job front.

So it seems like my exodus from KC has been postponed. I'm not upset in that "Damn you, Kansas City!!! When will you free me from your evil clutches?!" way, it's more of a "Come on, past and future employer. Get your shit together. It's my life we're playing with here."

Basically, two different sub-organizations in a much larger organization were telling me things about what needed to happen for me to get this new job rolling, and I chose the wrong group's lead to follow. So now it appears now that I might not be going until spring some time.

Of course, all of this could change at a moment's notice, so once again, I sit and wait. In the mean time, I can continue getting unemployment pay for free, or make just a little bit more money doing temp stuff. Decisions, decisions...

What are you doing? Sleeping?!?!?!?1?

If you don't already have it, go to stumbleupon.com right now and get Stumble Upon. It's basically a little button that gets added to the toolbar of the internet browsing device du jour, and it picks out random sites of interest based on your own interests. You can even stumble specific TYPES of sites. You can stumble Youtube or just videos in general. You can stumble all sorts of news sites, fake news sites, specific news publication sites....It's starting to become ridonkulous. I will warn you, however, that it is crack-like in it's addictiveness.

Already have it? Update your interests!!!!

I've been using it for a few years now and just recently updated my interests. When it first came out, you had maybe a few dozen options, but now it's INSANE. The way they have broken down the categories of interest deserve your attention. The other great thing is now it has neared the point of being useful, beyond just finding funny and obscure articles by your favorite writer, you can set it up to be a work tool. There are that many options.

Anywho, If you didn't already have it, get it. If you already do, update it.

The possibilities for time wasting are limitless.

Better late than never.

Yeah yeah, I've been gone a while. I'm gonna start updating this more regularly. Now that that's out of the way, let's begin.

I'm not sure what it is about shows at The Corbin. The content is always family friendly(ish), but before shows, the Fakers guys only seem capable of talking about the most random, completely inappropriate subjects. A few months ago, it was an idea for a musical that still might be written called "Dick Sauce".

At the most recent show, it was just general discussion of pee-poo, AKA Jenkem, AKA Butt Hash. If you don't know about it, here's how it works: Person wants to get high. Person poos and pees in a container. Balloon is sealed over lid of container. Pee-Poo ferments for a few days. Person inhales gasses from the pee-poo that the balloon has caught. Person is high.

Seriously, wha?

Now we're considering making pee-poo, super customizing it, and selling it on craigslist. Want pee-poo from someone that ate nothing but white chocolate dipped pretzels for a week? Vegetarian pee-poo? You name it, we'll custom make it for you. We'll have to dabble in the market a bit first, though, to see what such a custom product is worth.

That's it for now!

Not having a computer sucks.

Day #18 of very limited computer use.

It's 10:25 PM, I've been online for 5 minutes. I probably have little more than 5 left before the office closes and I have to get off again.

The place I'm staying at has wi-fi, so I'm seriously considering blowing $400 on one of the laptops they made for the "one laptop for every child" thing. They're made by Asus. They're no big deal. I would probably link to them, but no time.

Ohh, Angelina Jolie's having twins.

Sorry, I'm feeling isolated, not having my normal daily dose of crappy celeb gossip via What Would Tyler Durden Do?. Can't link, google it.

I think I'm going to do a show up here with Jill on Sunday. It should be a really good time. I'm starting to have withdrawls for both my internet and internet addictions. I would tell you to google the show, but I'm pretty sure it can't be found on the internet anywhere yet.

Ok, time to close the office. Peace.

KC Improvisers Blog Ring Coordinated Blog II

So, the topic for this month: what makes a good improv troupe?

In a word, me.

Not really. In a serious word, trust.

I love seeing a group not afraid to pick each other up, get in each other's grill, and maybe every once in a while getting close enough to make you just a tad uncomfortable. But it's so much more than that.

When two people enter a scene, if one person says something completely out of left field, I believe that trust is what will hold the other person from breaking, from trying to steer the scene back into any direction they had already set up in their head, and/or from limping into the established reality of the scene set by their partner, rather than jumping into the deep end.

Had enough? Well, here's another thing good troupes are wont to do: communicate effectively inside and outside of troupe business hours.

Gonna miss a rehearsal? Call ahead, mutha trucka. Be cool enough to have a decent excuse. And if you don't have one? Bring some french toast or snickers bars to the next rehearsal along with a big ass apology. Why? People love good tasting stuff, and are more willing to forgive you your faults if you come with a gift that goes in their belly.

Don't dig the format your group's doing? Suck it up and do it well or be willing to express your feelings (backed up with good reasons) to the director and the director alone. Even if you do have a somewhat valid point, no one wants to hear that shit in rehearsal. No one needs to. Bringing that up in front of the rest of your castmates just plants an uneeded seed of doubt. You may think it doesn't, but you're wrong, sucka.

The last thing that makes a decent troupe is passion. You've gotta be doing it for the right reasons. If you're doing it solely as a stepping stone to something new, get outta my face. Most of the people I admire today may have used improv as a stepping stone to get where they are now, but few have forgotten their roots. The folks I wanna party with that are on SNL or are doing movies are the folks that still go out to the improv clubs because it is something they still want to do. If you find yourself thinking that you've learned enough and that the only way you'll get better now is through performing, shut your trap and take a workshop. For realz.

Umm...that's all I've got for right now. I was going to leave it at just my third sentence, at just trust, but I'm kind of glad I elaborated a little bit. Sorry for the tardy.

My boring update.

So, I'm going to MN a few weeks later than I had planned. I leave May 2nd now. Here's the deal: I could have a much better paying job tomorrow if I wanted, I'm pretty sure of that. At this point in my life, and at this point in the course of our country, it seems as though we're on a collision course.

Making healthcare an affordable and attainable thing for everyone seems like a pretty good cause to devote a year of one's life to. On top of making sure every child has access to a world class education, keeping good jobs here in the USA, blah blah blah.....

I talk to middle class folk every day, and I love it. I work for a non-partisan public lobbying group. That means we don't deal in party specific B.S., we work on issues.

Issues are what people too often forget in the election process. I love it when I walk up to a person with a Ron Paul or John McCain sign in their yard. I'm not trying to convince them to change candidates, all I'm doing is bringing important issues that affect their lives to the forefront. Putting it in their minds. Hopefully in a few months, when they go to vote, they'll keep these facts in their minds.

Bah, I could go on, but I'm a little tired.

Don't call it a comeback.

Here's something improv related that I'm still trying to understand: Why do people care what other cities think of our scene? Also, how would they know much of anything about it?

I mean honestly, Kansas City hasn't exactly been sending out TONS of representatives to other festivals. And the out of town improvisers we bring in for the festival perform their shows and get to watch the other acts from out of town. What do y'all expect? The only real way to get big time national notoriety, which I could personally care less about, would be to have an open call festival, and mix national acts in with local acts. Having lots more local troupes going to other festivals would help too.