26 Miles of Comedy

This weekend was the 7th Annual Del Close Marathon at the UCB Theatre, which meant 3 days STRAIGHT of shows shows shows. Today, I am tired.
The pre-kick off for the marathon happened Thursday night in Central Park with a free show with the Original Upright Citizens Brigade and a bunch of others from SNL, Comedy Central, etc.
Improv comedy is a funny thing (da dun dun - RIMSHOT!), because everybody likes to see a little funny from time to time. But only certain people want to sit some 4, 6, 12 hours at a time and see constant non-stop improv shows. It's an amazing experience, realizing that the things you see are created before you and will never be seen again because it came up out of thin air. Even if an idea is taken and developed into a sketch or movie (as many things discovered in improv are), it will still never match the original live out-of-nothingness in the moment it was created. It was amazing to watch some groups this weekend.
Also when you watch improv some 4, 6, 12 hours at a time and combine that with smart, quirky people and the wee hours of the night, strange things happen. I saw some shows on stage that were incredibly strange, and not in that strange performance art way, but more in the "this is CRAZY and I don't know what to say to the person beside me, much less the people who aren't here who will NEVER understand what i am talking about when i tell them about this." Improv is an experiential thing and that's one thing that I like about it. Being there in the moment.
The other cool thing about improv, the marathon, and the UCBT is that it's a very accessible place, unlike going to a huge concert where there's a wall between you and the performers. An example is, I was able to be in two shows this weekend. One called "The Lottery" where they had 5 seasoned improvisers on stage and then they called out dates and any UCB student who's birthday was closest to the date they called out got to get on stage as a performer. Fun, nervous experience. And then the other show I was in.....Sonic Assault....it took place at 3:30 am one night and involved some 50 people on stage in costume chanting, freestlye rap battling, dancing to techno, throwing stuffed animals, spraying baby powder around, and screaming for 30 minutes straight (all led by SNL's Rob Riggle and UCB's Matt Walsh). I know. You weren't there so it doesn't make any sense. Trust me, if you were, it'd be different. But it still wouldn't have made any sense.















Original UCB at Summerstage (Rob Riggle in the background).









View from behind my head of original UCB at Summerstage.
















This is Sonic Assault. "That looks chaotic." Yes yes.

"alright already" or "it feels good to know people actually read this"

Well hello again. I was going to go to bed but I saw a comment posted requesting an update and it is due time. So i'll brave through the late hours and post. My plan has worked and I've baited you into wanting more.......ah hahahahaha. and thanks for wanting more.

You may be saying "my gosh, couldn't you post more than that one in a week? I mean, it's not too hard. What do you do all day?" Well, aside from my freelance edit job right now, I'm not doing any more work yet (read those italics...yet), but I do have to do other things here. Like hang out with P. Diddy a lot, and things like play street ball with Patrick Ewing's nephew two blocks from me, etc., etc., etc. It's a busy life here in the NYC, folks.

But I did manage to get some stuff together. By the way, gross things that have happened lately: today i spilled water on the bathroom floor (read: new york city bathroom floor, even in your own apartment - DIRTY). I decided to wipe it up with my bath towel because it was time to change towels. I hung it back up and said to myself, "Tomorrow morning when you get in the shower, REMEMBER TO GET A NEW TOWEL." 10 minutes ago, I wiped my face dry with the same towel and then remembered it graced the floor 12 hours ago. Gross.

NEW PICTURE:




















"Uh, okay man. But you're wearing a suit."
"Seriously, paint on me."
"Whatever you say dude. Here goes...."

Also, while exploring the Lower East Side this week, I passed two women walking and picked up on this conversation tidbit:
Woman to other woman walking with her (in a heavy New York accent):

"I mean you don't have a job and I'm on social security......AND WE LOVE IT."


She sounded really confident, like she really did love it and she was just riding the wave. Do it lady, do it.

There is a hungarian pastry shop around the corner from me that I sat in the other day and did some work. It's aptly named, The Hungarian Pastry Shop (hey, if it ain't broke.....). It's an artsy inspiring place. I took this picture while I was there. It's called "Hungarian Romance".















Quaint, isn't it? Yeah, whatever.
God bless.....

so this is a little random, but here's a start

Hello, and welcome to writings about new york city and me, finally written to you from me in new york city. Yes, i finally moved to new york as of the 24th of July and now live in Manhattan, on the upper part of the upper west side in the upper part of an apartment building.

So, welcome. To be honest, there are a lot of people with blogs written from new york (really...in New York City...No way!!!...yes, yes I know it's crazy but believe me it's true...) and a lot of them are really funny and insightful, etc. etc. Now i'm not gonna go shooting myself in the foot saying, "i'm not good enough to write interesting stuff....'. No, more of my problem is, I don't know what the heck to write about. We live in this over informed society now, and so everyone has tons of things to say and you can tell anyone anywhere about the brilliant idea you just had about how text messaging is limiting and evil, via a text message, or any other communication device. Anyway, my point is, what can i write that is of interest so I and my 5 friends can log on and read it repeatedly (them: once, me: repeatedly)?

To solve this debacle, I've been brainstorming about interesting things to post. I have a camera usually kept in my bag, with which i can catch interesting pictures around the city, and once a week give you a taste of the most interesting thing i saw. Also, in light of my moving, i thought of the total number of times i've moved since I graduated college. Total? 14. Total number of roommates in those years who have gotten married soon after our living together? 9. Interesting...sort of.

Other interesting things I could post include interesting things I overhear as I pass people on the street. Tonight on the way home outside a bar half a block from my apartment, I heard a girl on the phone give me this week's winner:

Girl on phone:
"Hello? My friend just swallowed a quarter.
Is that ok? Can he pass that?"

Priceless.

Also, I leave you with this picture:















In the top right corner: rat running up the stairs outside my building.

Welcome to New York.