April 17, 2008

Love. Some Definitions

Love is a terrible word.

I love you.
I love my family
I love nachos.

Love is a realm in need of definitions. I presented these at Corbin's Something Worth Talking About Show. It was themed: Love (revisited).

Flirting
Flirting is the energy between two people caused by desire. It's much like soccer baseball in high school: it's a game that you have to play even if you don't want to and there are no internationally accepted rules. Playing flirting in different cultures can result in quite different experiences. What is accepted is that, in flirting, the first to ten points wins. The goal is to make someone desire you by suggesting that you desire them. If you don't desire them at all then you are being a tease. If you desire them too much then you are being creepy. Each player must choose to escalate the flirt game to the next level. This can be done through language, touching, or through the clever use of pauses. Most flirting games end in a draw known as "confusion". No one has ever won a game of flirting but sometimes it ends in "doing it" or "getting it on".

Crush
A crush is the person that you pick for your own imagination game. This game involves picturing yourself and your crush doing things together. If you only picture you and your crush "getting it on" or "doing it" then you do not have a crush. You have lust. If you picture you and your crush holding hands, living abroad together, or doing something that you saw in a movie, then you have a crush. Be warned, a crush can transform from a game into an obsessive condition. This happens because of the sheer joy of imagination, quizzes in teen magazines, and general boredom. A crush can be cured by skeptical friends, the bitter potion of aging or, in some cases, by meeting your crush.

Unconditional love
This is when someone supports you in a completely irrational way; they support all of your choices before you make them. People who love you unconditionally never listen to what you say. They smile and nod, shower you with praise, and cry because you're growing up. You cannot choose to love anyone unconditionally. It tends to occur when you spend a lot of your life with someone or if you happened to see them as a baby emerging from your vagina. It's important for children to have someone who loves them unconditionally so that they grow up with the feeling that all of their ideas are good and it is the world that is wrong.

Slut
Sluts are people who are physically intimate with many people. Usually without the culturally acceptable waiting period. It's a tragedy that we only have one word for our sluts because they come in very differnent varieties. Some sluts use physical intimacy because it gives them attention and a sense of worth; they risk being seen as a sexual tool for others. Other sluts simply like how it feels to "get it on" and enjoy multiple partners in equal and pleasant sexual relations. These sluts spread goodwill like Mother Teresa. But unlike Mother Teresa their names are not used as compliments. In fact, slut is often used as an insult to control young women by suggesting that they don't know what to do with their own bodies.

"Getting it on" or "Doing it"
For some these expessions mean having sexual intercourse with someone. For others it suggests, intensive lip-to-lip and hand-to-body rubbing or possibly oral-on-genital dancing. If someone asks you to specify what you meant when you said "doing it" then they have committed a grave error in etiquette. But if they watch an online video of you perform sexual activities then it is you who have committed the error because it is science that every recorded session of "getting it on" is destined for the internet. This certainty can be expressed in a formula pioneered by mathmatician Paris Hilton.

Soulmates
This is the belief that people have a proper match. Soulmate theory is not very advanced. For instance, if you are heterosexual and your soulmate is homosexual there's no way to tell who made the mistake.

Love at First Sight
This is a device used to save time in movies. Most movies are about love but, with only two hours to tell a story, they have to establish a full, mutual, trusting relationship in a glance. This saves directors time that can then be used to show sex, explosions, or boat chases where the characters are having sex as boats explode. In reality, most people have to meet and learn about someone before loving them. But love-at-first-sight can happen between two people who have written documents describing their personality tatooed on their face.

Marriage
This is a legal agreement that the state encourages couples to enter in order to record the legitimate heirs of their property. There are some tax benefits.

Love
Human beings are social animals we know this because we are amusing to watch from above, like ants. Love is the struggle to see this with someone else. A moment outside of it all where we can help each other build the prison that we want to live in.

Improv with Adam Cawley

I'm doing a show on April 25th at Unit 102.
Details have been slow to come out but it features:

Pretty Funny Georgea Hancock and Claire Salloum
Science Punch Alice Morran and Lisa Farlow
Bob Banks and Sarah Hillier
and Adam Cawley and I.

Improv with Mark Cotoia

Mark Cotoia, internet babe, and I competed against each other at Catch 23. We figured we'd like to work together at some point. We're ready for the big time.

show title: Vanguard Presents
where: The Savannah Room (294 College street - right at spadina/college)
what day: wednesday, april 23rd
what time: 8pm (doors open at 7:30pm)
admission: $5
6 acts in total - sketch, improv, stand-up

Kevin Williams - improvised solo set
Sarah Donaldson - stand up comic
The Young Guns - improv ensemble
Mark Cotoia & Peter Stevens (Nemo Dally) - improv duo
Sally Smallwood & Cameron Algie - real-life couple for 10 years - first-time improv couple

Solo Improv Set at Ghost Jail

I'll be doing a solo improv set at Ghost Jail this Sunday (April 17th).

It's $5, 8pm sharp at Clinton's (map).

March 18, 2008

The End of An Era

Rich People in Space's Reign of Terror ended at Catch 23. I was two wins away from being able to reunite with teammate Adam Cawley. It was a night of a boisterous, supportive, St. Patrick's Day crowd and a judge I didn't relate to. I didn't feel I brought my A-game. I loved my storytelling but the pace of my scenes was slow. I think the best symbol of the night was the final round. The judge shocked me by giving a perfect 5 to a team that I thought completely dropped the ball in the last round (no hate -I've been there and lacked the fourth round finish). But who I am to complain? My final scene was better -but still mediocre. Yet, like a supportive parent, it was wildly celebrated by the audience who kept me in the game with their loving show of support. That's the nice thing about being a returning champ: you are the history of your funniest moments.

I look forward to returning to the Catch 23 stage and earning their support.

Memory banking:
1 In Love. No Money.
A lover's homemade engagement ring falls apart so he robs a store. He shoots the window twice to show he's serious. A woman sees that he's in true love and offers him her husband's engagement ring. He accepts and they tackle him to the ground.
2 Beer
My best scene of the night. A shy, young man laments about needing to get drunk to approach people. He kidnaps someone he's interested in and attempts to win her over by showing her pictures of his life. In the end, the pictures were all photoshopped. Tailor-made to win her over.
3 Volcano (host's challenge: someone must walk off of the stage)
Too much yelling and hard to keep track of the characters. A person refuses to let go of their dog and
4 Influenza
A quarantined old man looks after sick babies and has no freedom to do exciting things -like parachuting. Siddhartha shows up, looks at him, sits and achieves enlightenment.

Project Project - March 19th - Now with Siblings!

I've never performed with either of my brothers. That changes this Wednesday, March 19th. I'll be taking the stage at Project Project (Wednesday, 8:30pm at Unit 102 -46 Noble Street) with Paul. I think the theme is KidStreet.

Remember that game show? Classic host.
They isolated the siblings and asked them questions and then they got points if they agreed. I remember telling my siblings a plan -if we are ever chosen for KidStreet (as a child I assumed the onus was on the show's producers to approach random houses -so, I believed there was I chance we could be picked and I wanted to be ready).

The plan was: only answer spaghetti. If they ask my favourite food, or nickname, or "who's the most daring in your family?", or "what will you be when you grow up?". Be strong. The only answer you give is "spaghetti". We would have revolutionized the way the game was played.

I loved the host for this show.

March 11, 2008

Catch 23 - March 17th

I'll be back at Catch 23 on Monday. I'm excited to be the returning champ for the opening of The Tournament of Wonders -a festival that brings improvisers from across North America to Toronto. Ferrari McSpeedy (Minneapolis) will be performing as well as 9/11 (Chicago). I'm two wins away from reuniting with Adam Cawley for Rich People in Space. I'm planning on impressing myself by consciously crafting dark material built on interesting storytelling. I trust my instincts to insert silly later on in my scenes.

Dear memory here were the scenes from the last show.

1. Stuck on the top of a mountain
A climber and their servant are stuck on top of a moment. The opening was clearly inspired by my recent viewing of Kurosawa's Dreams. At one point an emergency fire melts the snow above the climbers a danger I owe to having read Jack London's To Build A Fire.

2. Basketball
My best scene of the night. It helped me understand that I do my best work when I open with serious instead of silly. Practice is not enough for a young basketball player to make the team -consequently they are kicked out of their family. LeBron James gives them one three point shot at redemption during an NBA game. They toss it up granny style, it sails over the backboard, and smokes a kid eating ice cream in the face. A long, fun scene with a fun meta-game wherein I kept insisting that the scene wasn't over whenever the lights went down.

3. I said: I'm going to play "should have said" (host's challenge: play a game in the scene) They said: In a Church
Praying in church and asking God about the story of Job. Narrative lost out to the barrage of "should have saids" but that was part of the fun.

4. I said: Action Movie Trailer. They said: Dinosaur Museum
The best part was an audience member demanding the inclusion of a gun that shoots bees. That made this scene good. Classic example of being too silly and not providing anything interesting for myself. I was unable to kill any villain in a satisfying action-movie way. Only riding the skeleton of a T-Rex on top of someone was worth mentioning but it wasn't set up very well.