The Illuminated Donkey

Boy, this sure was a long week.

Some Notes on Attending a Screening of the Documentary "What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A." at the Museum of Television & Radio with Mr. Mike Wolf.

• One of the most obvious things in watching the movie and the other material about the Beatles' first visit to the U.S. is how you can see things change right before your eyes. When the camera would scan those screaming Ed Sullivan audiences you can pick out the faces of a couple of stunned, silent 16-year-old boys who thought they were taking their girl on a date to the hottest show of the year, then were instead being rudely informed that perhaps getting that Eagle Scout certification and making career plans to join Dad at the union-approved machine-stamping shop just wasn't gonna cut it with Debbie. Probably not a few guys skipped their regular haircuts that week and instead signed up for guitar lessons.
• On a similar note, it was a bit disconcerting to see just how old everybody except for the Beatles and the screaming girls was. I mean, Ed Sullivan, all of the DJ's (including the MCA "Good Guys" and Murray the K, the gaggle of press photographers that covered the visit...not a guy under 40 in the bunch. Probably within three years the average age of the press surrounding that type of event was probably lower by at least a third.
• As for the Beatles themselves, one of the interesting things was seeing just how fully formed their individual and collective personas and images were at that early point. Though even then you could see them beginning to strain a bit. George and Ringo would be cutting up on the train for the press and passengers, fully "on" and working, but every once in a while you can catch a brief pleading look that seems to wonder just how much longer they'd have to do this. Of course, at that moment, they were only two-and-a-half years away from releasing Revolver and giving up on performing live.

All that being said, as a general comment (and I think Mr. Wolf will agree with me on this one), despite what raves you may have read, I wouldn't really recommend "What's Happening" unless you're a total and complete Beatles freak who needs to see every possible minute of Beatles footage available. I saw this described as a "landmark verite documentary," which is another way of saying "near-raw footage." Basically it's about 45 minutes of the Beatles on their first visit to the U.S. -- in the limo from JFK Airport (renamed from Idlewild only six weeks earlier), their hotel rooms, the train down to D.C. -- engaging and occasionally amusing, but Mike and I were hoping for and expecting more information and background about the visit to go along with the footage.

Is It Safe to Jump Back on the Bandwagon? The Nets' current 12-game winning streak might just be the most normal thing to happen in what is perhaps the weirdest season in NBA history. To recap: a Conference Champion team celebrates its follow-up season by announcing plans to move the team out of state, observing the manslaughter trial [with assorted sordid details] of one fan-favorite ex-player and the early passing of another, firing a highly successful coach [following a win against the Celtics, which was also the last game for Boston's coach!] and replacing him with a guy who couldn't even make his high school team and whose only head-coaching experience was for a Catholic Youth Organization team, then watching said coach win his first 11 games...well, if you can make any sense out of it, you're a better fan than me.

But definitely not a better fan than those fine, fine folks at JoeNetsfan.com, the No Stranger to Frustration boys themselves! Head over right now to look back on all the craziness of the past few months, check out individual player first-half grades and second-half predictions , and learn why Keith Van Horn is like Brussel sprouts.

Advantages I've So Far Discovered to Being Unemployed:

1. The gummint will send you a decent check every couple of weeks or so, for a while.
2. Extremely fine people and their fiances (and the unlinkable Mo-Skee and David) will take you out for pity-related single-malts and Italian food.
3. After drinking way too many scotches on a Thursday night, you don't have to worry after waking up early the next morning.
4. Plenty of time to work on various writing projects I've put aside.
5. A logical focus for all of those feelings of anger and resentment I've been harboring these past few months.

Oh, and in non-me-related links and such I've noticed over the past few days:

• Paul Katcher does a head-to-head comparison of two of the most feared baseball lineups in history: the 2004 Yankees vs. Mr. Burns' Springfield Nuclear Power Plant Dream Team! It's too close to call!
• Bill Barol presents a Message From The National Council to Promote Literacy Among 15-Year-Old White Boys.
• Oh, and please cast a vote for our beloved Mr. Happy Crack in Contracting Digest's 'Mascot of the Year' awards. In your crack, you know he's right.

Celebrating 24 Hours of Freedom! Hey, everybody: thanks for all the kind words. I really appreciate them. I'm doing pretty well, all things considered. I mean, I have money saved up and some more coming in (accrued vacation time, tax return), and listen to this: apparently the gummint will just send me a check every couple of weeks I'm not working! How cool is that?! So cry no tears for Ken Goldstein. I figure this will finally give me the opportunity to catch up on this backlog of scotch and porn that I just haven't had time for.

Well, I'm off to queue up for the dole. I feel like a plucky pipefitter in a Mike Leigh movie.

And Then Things Took a Sudden and Dramatic Turn for the Worse.

So...um...was anybody else laid off today? No? So that would just be me?

Okay...just checking.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. Godspeed D'Lish, and thanks for closing it down before mentioning the latest horrible sabotage I pulled on ya. I'll see you in hell.

Studies I'm hoping to run as soon as those research grants come through:

• Was there an exact moment when absolutely nothing could be considered truly "uncool" since the very act of publicly espousing said apparently uncool thing showed that the person was above such judgments and, hence, even cooler (study tentatively titled "Hey, Laugh at My Mullet: the Birth of Noncool")?
  
  
• How long do the marriages last where the man felt compelled to propose to his wife on some sort of stadium Jumbotron DiamondVision or on an airplane or similarly public venue, as opposed to those where the man didn't feel the need to have the whole world watching?
  
  
• Given that the price of a movie ticket keeps going up while the price of DVD's and videos generally keep going down, at what date and price point will the two intersect?
  
  
• Why do some people — people who are apparently not hurting for moolah or cultivating a deathwish — choose to live in shoddy buildings that fall apart in the face of a stiff breeze?

Wheee! Does it make me a bad person if the fact that not everybody has off tomorrow has me feeling even better about my own day off? Yeah, yeah...don't answer that. Anyway, the Metropolitan Museum will be having a special Monday opening for the holiday, and I plan to take advantage of it.

Notes on Week Six (of Eight) of the Improv Class. It was a strange class, with the instructor and just about everybody in the class feeling like they just wanted to pass out and die. I was actually feeling pretty focused and happy (carryover from last night), but there was a definite lack of energy in the room, like everybody wanted to just go home and take a nap and try again later.

The other thing is that we've reached a point where we've accumulated a reasonably sizable number of hints, lessons, attitudes, procedures, etc. that we're supposed to use, and a lot of times there's a bit of a bottleneck in the act of trying to do so while actually performing the scene. A classmate likened it to coaching sports, where when we first started we were just going up to the plate and swinging wildly, whereas now we're standing there thinking "okay, right elbow up, knees slightly bent, lift that shoulder, step in a bit..." all while a fastball's coming in at 90-mph. Basically, we haven't absorbed it all so that it's a natural, fluid process.

As for me, I thought I did fairly okay tonight, though I had my own problems with the bottleneck, as well as a specific difficulty at being able to disregard the suggestions as opposed to the actual path of the scene. Another negative was that in the one scene where I was best received, I was a bit selfish, in that I didn't really leave a lot of space open to my partner, though it still all worked. Oh well, just yet another thing to think about when I'm making up a story and a bunch of people are staring at me. If nothing else, the drinks and conversation after class were a lot of fun.

Hmmm...how cold does it have to be and how drunk do I have to be to not feel guilty about taking a cab from the PATH station to my ten-minute-walk-away building? Apparently about one degree colder and one drink drunker...and now I am still all chilly and tired and sore-eared. Actually, now that I think about, that always-too-long train ride from Manhattan via Hoboken (to drop off all the drunk frat guys singing Neil Diamond tunes) to Journal Square always seems to sober me right up.

If Bitterness Is So Wrong Why Does It Feel So Right? There are some nights where everything just seems right with the whole damn world. Amazing party, terrific company, wonderful people, delicious drinks, hours flying by, the adventures of official FoD Keith, watching hard work come to a glorious result, finding a Truman Capote novel on the street to read on the ride home but not even needing it since I met up with a really interesting guy from Iowa on the platform...

But now I definitely need to collapse. So that is what I'll do.

Update: Dear Lord...it was all...just a dream.

Y

Greetings from Cave City, Kentucky! The meeting is going really well, thanks for asking; in fact, we've been slightly ahead of schedule (the decision to invalidate all absentee and proxy votes saved a couple of hours right there), so I decided to take advantage of my hotel room's high-speed web access to post a few notes.

• Everybody can stop e-mailing, IMing, and accosting me on the street: I had absolutely nothing to do with this:

  The Storybook Romance Comes To An End For Barbie And Ken
  
  MALIBU, Calif. (February 12, 2004) - After more than 43 years together, Hollywood's quintessential "doll" of a couple, Barbie and Ken, have decided to spend some time apart. Although Barbie® has befriended some of the world's most famous celebrities, from popular boy bands to super secret agent spies, Ken® always remained her #1 sweetheart. After all, Ken has been Barbie doll's biggest supporter for more than four decades, by her side from her early career as a teen fashion model to her recent turn as movie starlet. Their relationship was so revered that other successful celebrity pairings were often dubbed "Barbie and Ken."

  I mean, who the hell decided that it would be a good idea to announce this couple two freaking days before Valentine's Day?! Makes me think somebody at Mattel has been checking out a certain site.
• I need some help completing this list:

  1970's: John Oates.
  1980's: Andrew Ridgely.
  1990's: ?
  2000's: Meg White.

  Were the 1990's woefully short on talent-lopsided duos or am I missing somebody obvious?
• And no, D'Lish, I had nothing to do with this either. I mean, seriously, a pool cue? You know I prefer shovels for my road-rage incidents.

A Brief Respite. This blog will not be updated for a few days, as the whole IllDonk Industries team is heading down to Cave City, Kentucky for our annual stockholders meeting and shoo-fly pie bakeoff (don't think you're gonna make it a threepeat, Katie!). If you have any questions during our absence, please leave a voicemail message and our customer service team will get back to you ASAP.

Oh, and try not to do anything stupid again this Valentine's Day.

Those much-appreciated folks who pay the extremely reasonable $9.95/month subscription rate for the Illuminated Donkey Premium Gold Membership can switch on their DonkCams right now to witness the sight of me with a huge grin on my face. And why is that grin so huge? Because Bill Barol and his beloved Blather Blog has returned after a months-long hiatus, including a few weeks there when he was obviously just sort of phoning it in, not that we don't all do that on occasion, of course. Anyway, Bill has a new site design, a new URL, and a backlog of practically-writing-itself horrificness from the likes of Janet and Justin and David and Liza to catch up on. It's snarklarious!

Help a Brother Out! Can you take a few seconds out of your busy schedules to help wish my old Seattle roommate Murph, who was the best damn roommate a guy could have had and who I'm still stealing bits from, a happy birthday? Thanks a million.

Only Five Shopping Days Left Until Valentine's Day, which means there's still plenty of time left to visit the Black Hearts Party Crapeteria! Looking for that special something for that special someone? Why not send him or her a lovely "Thinking of You" dead-rat greeting card, an "Emotionally Unavailable" or "Needy and Clingy" t-shirt, or a teddy bear with a filthy word on it? In fact, why not stock up now for your next few failed relationships?

Notes on Week Five (of Eight) of the Improv Class. Bleh. Well, I guess that would only be one note, so I better amend it: Bleh Bleh. After what I thought was a step forward for me last week, tonight was a whole lot of nothing much, which is strange, since I came to the class really jacked up after an afternoon of creative activity. Last week I had to down a Red Bull right before class and still almost collapsed, yet I had a couple of really good moments; tonight I went to class feeling really awake and focused (and slightly buzzed), yet nothing. Strange and slightly disconcerting. A few people did some terrific work this week, and that was actually really good to see. They're some damn fine people.

It was an opposites kinda night for me in a few ways, since before one of my scenes I went up there with the idea of being really proactive and showing a lot of energy, yet ended up trying to focus more on reacting to my partner and being real, then the next time up I tried to focus more on the reality/reaction, when it turned into a (pretty much successful) free-for-all with a lot of energy and laughs. One breakthrough for me was that after my first scene, which didn't go well, my first reaction wasn't to grab my bag and coat and run out of the class forever, forfeiting my tuition.

We're also supposed to now be thinking about signing up for Level 2 classes, and as of this moment I have no idea if I'm going to. We'll see what happens next week, I guess. Gulp.

A Few Quick Notes on a Fine Jersey Evening.

• If you're going to drive out to the Meadowlands (and how the hell can the Blogger spellcheck be missing Meadowlands?!?!) to watch your alma mater for the first time in ten or so years, and if that alma mater is going to lose the game, then I suppose they might as well play so horribly that the game is pretty much decided midway through the first half and the taunts of the opposing team's students don't really sting since they're we're all pretty much in agreement that, at least for this one night, we pretty much do suck.
• If that opposing team is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a half-time old-timers game featuring alumni from over various eras, then perhaps somebody could tell the 6'6" recent graduate that it's perhaps not in keeping with the spirit of the event to swat a massive power rejection into the face of the poor 70-year-old guy who's just trying to put up a set shot or two without getting injured.
• Mapquest directions seem to be more suggestions than hard-and-fast rules.
• It's great to see good people that you haven't seen in easily a decade and everybody's doing well. It makes you feel like maybe we all did something right at some point.
• Oh, and in case any of you out there were wondering if the term "Cock-block" had yet entered the general vernacular to the point where it can just be dropped into a conversation at a party without bringing said conversation and the surrounding area to a screeching, needle-sliding-off-the-45 halt: that's still a big negative on that one.

Hey, Buddies and Buddettes! Still dateless for that little holiday coming up on February 14? Well, you still have one last chance to find somebody, though that somebody happens to be in St. Louis. Presenting...the Win a Date with Mr. Happy Crack Contest! Just answer the seven simple questions and you can be on your way to true crack-filled love!

Severe Weather Alert from the National Weather Service in effect from 12 AM to 1 PM Friday. Damned wintry mixes...every other freaking day it's another freaking wintry mix...seriously, is there anybody out there who isn't in one of those I-should-be-out-doing-things-and-expanding-my-horizons-and-maybe-meeting-new-and-exciting-people-but-hope-only-leads-to-disappointment-and-it's-easier-to-just-sit-here-and-play-that-smack-a-penguin-caveman-game kinda moods? And if there is, can you please bring some snacks to my apartment?

Oh yeah, there's also a Flood Watch in effect.

Look, I don't think it was too much to ask that one of the three clerks who watched me wander around the discount shoe store and try on various pairs of shoes for a good 20 minutes tell me that it was exclusively a women's shoe store (because with a lot of the styles it was hard to tell!), rather than let me figure out for myself when a snot-nosed teenager pointed at me and began laughing. Stupid clerks.

Recess Is Over. Okay, so we all saw a boob for half a second. I think we can all move on with our lives now.

Oh, and I know that I'm supposed to disguise my posted e-mail address with an -at- instead of the @ so that Spam-scoopers or whatever they're called can't pick it up, but if I did that there's a good chance I would never have received the following request from the webmaster of "a spiritual web directory:"

Hello, I am creating a web directory and would like to include your website Bleak.blogspot.com under the "health/massage therapy and bodywork" category.

I mean, it's about time that somebody's recognized what I'm really trying to do with this site!

Just When You Thought It Was Over. The recap has been posted, the worst bar in New York has shut down, so what else can be left to say about the Big Apple Blogger Bash?

Well, Belle has just one more thing to say about it: ASS! Or actually: ASS ASS ASS!

I wonder where I'll be in five years.

One part of the other night's class that I forgot to mention was experiencing the ultimate reward of comedic performing: getting back at somebody in my life by ridiculing him/her while strangers laugh viciously. One of the exercises was to perform a suggested scene as a character who we knew personally (as opposed to an earlier exercise where we did scenes as a famous real-life or fictional character). After considering a few family members and friends, the obvious choice sprung to mind. I'm not going to get specific about who this person is and why their every utterance and mannerism makes me cringe and gnash my teeth and pray for a just deity to crack open the ground beneath this person's feet so that they fall down to the fiery pits of the earth's core, but I can say that it felt incredibly fulfilling to stand up in front of the class and recreate those cringe-worthy traits, and the laughter assured me that everybody else would feel exactly the same way were they ever unfortunate enough to have to spend time with this particular person whose name I am still not mentioning. So that felt good.

Thank God I Don't Bet on Sports. Because of the unfortunate and unswitchable meeting time of my improv class (which again went fairly well after an extremely rocky beginning; I obviously need to start doing something to prepare for class earlier, so that I'm not completely off-kilter and blank-minded for the first hour), I was only able to catch the last eight or so minutes of the game (we got into the bar right after the Brady interception deep in Carolina territory), but all I can possibly say is Sweet Holy Mother of Pearl! Touchdown after touchdown after touchdown, with a half-dozen great catches and non-stop excitement.

Of course, I had been telling everybody around me that it would be a rather low-scoring, low-key game, with New England taking an early lead and shutting down the Panthers the rest of the way. And while I guess it was low- (actually, no-) scoring for about 25 minutes, after that both offenses just went completely ape-shit and reminded me why I should never, never, never bet sports, including maybe even grid pools. I just apparently don't know nothing, not that I could beat the vig even if I did. Which I don't.

And can somebody tell me just what the heck happened at halftime that the NFL had a statement out within minutes?

Statement by NFL Executive Vice President Joe Browne regarding the Super Bowl halftime show:

"We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced halftime show. They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the show. It's unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime."

An all-star musical recreation of the Paris Hilton video? Folk music? Cannibalism? Now I'm sorry I missed it.

Update: I shoulda known...the Gigglechick has the straight dope on the disturbance, complete with close-ups! Oh dear.

Wouldn't it be great if the military had all the money it needed and schools had to hold a bake sale to buy a textbook? Maybe some day that dream will be a reality, but for now, they have to rely on ArmyBakeSale.com: Exporting Democracy and Delicious Baked Goods since 2003. And remember, a new Patriot Anti-Missile Battery is only 300,000 cookies away!

Courtesy of the obviously brilliant Luna, The Terror Alert Banana, featuring the current Department of Homeland Security color-coded threat level in handy and convenient Dancing Banana form.

Yeah, this is more like it: short posts mostly consisting of stuff other people wrote or did. That is so much easier than long posts I write myself! It's not like I'm getting paid for this or anything!

Announcing an Incredible New Contest!

Have you always wanted to attend New York's own legendary Black Hearts Party but you're either not acquainted with any of the organizers or don't want to pretend to be going out with me? Well, for the first time ever, the hosts are holding a contest to give a few lucky (or not-so-lucky) strangers the chance to attend.

The Black Hearts Party Essay Writing Contest lets you vent your frustration in 250-750 words in any of three categories: My Worst Breakup, Why I Hate Valentine's Day, and Why I Deserve to Attend. An indeterminate number of winners will be selected on a completely arbitrary basis and given a ticket for BHP XIV. The deadline is February 7, so get on it!

I received my 1000th comment today, on the Big Apple Blogger Bash post below. I was going to give a prize to whoever left the 1000th comment, without announcing that in advance to avoid lots of pointless comments, but the person who left comment #1000 did so anonymously. So I bet that person feels pretty dumb now, huh?

To: Ashley Charleston
From: Guy Sterling IV, EVP Marketing
Re: Marketing/Distribution Plan for Independent Feature: "AshleyHotSex.wmv"

Ashley: Received the final cut of "AshleyHotSex" and we're all incredibly thrilled with it. It definitely avoids the grainy, disjointed quality that we were worried about, and it's a terrific showcase for a breakthrough performance. I'm sure we won't be hearing any more talk about any "wooden performances" or "lack of emotion" after they see the bit with the nightstand and the candles. And be sure to pass along to Jake how much I liked his cinematography/co-starring, and mention that bananas can help prevent leg cramps.

Now, there is a legitimate worry that the whole category may be growing too crowded — I mean, Dr. J for crissakes — so I suggest we move quickly. I've already taken the liberty of initiating several lawsuits and pre-issuing our angry denials. In addition, we set up four press meetings for next week and then immediately canceled them citing your emotional precariousness and a refusal to discuss "AshleyHotSex," which prompted a new round of interviews and at least two calls from the major networks. We'll discuss on a case-by-case basis on Friday morning.

Now, w/r/t your short-term actions, we've found that a three-day no-comment/denial cycle usually works the best: two days and you seem a little eager, four and you look a little delusional. In fact, we might even cut that denial time since Jake was good enough to mention your website address twice (though in the future, while the framed posters from your last film may have seemed like a good idea — and of course I loved you as Dancer's Friend in "Talk to the Hand" — we should probably avoid giving free publicity to past projects that you don't get points from, though I imagine that won't be an ongoing concern.

As for the distribution strategy, I've just sent the file to my 15-year-old nephew with the Subject Line "I CAN'T BELIEVE ITS REALLY HER!!!!!!" It should be forwarded to everybody else in the world's Inbox in about 45 minutes. Watch for it. We'll see you on Friday.

Best,

Guy

This Week's Political Note: Vote Early, Vote Often, Vote for Vermin Supreme! During my regular perusal of Ryan Lizza's excellent Campaign Journal Blog on The New Republic Online, I immediately noticed the headline "Howard Dean is face to face with Vermin..." and quickly clicked to check the story out. What I saw:

REVOLUTION POSTPONED: Howard Dean is face to face with Vermin. [...] Dean is scrounging for some last minute independent votes on a talk radio show, but Vermin, a presidential candidate wearing a rubber boot on his head and an enormous goat belt buckle--"a goat cod piece with chaps I would call it," he says--is waiting for him. The two candidates have a short exchange. "I asked him if he supported mandatory tooth-brushing and he claimed never to have heard of the issue, if you can believe that," says Vermin.

led me to believe that it could only be one person: perennial Mayoral/Emperorial/Presidential candidate Vermin Supreme.

A quick search helped me discover this recent profile of Mr. Supreme which confirmed my hope that he was still stalking the campaign trail, with a boot on his head and brandishing a megaphone with "THIS MACHINE ANNOYS FASCISTS" printed on it, and throwing a monkey wrench into even the slickest political machines. Vermin is a man who is willing to do anything to get his message across, and if he doesn't happen to have a message at any particular time, he's not above biting his opponent.

You see, Vermin Supreme and I have a bit of a history. Way way way back in the dark days of the early 1990's, Vermin Supreme was briefly running for the office of Mayor of New Brunswick. Now, it turns out that there was no Mayoral race in New Brunswick that particular year, but he was hoping to start gathering votes well in advance so he'd have plenty by the time November 1994 rolled around. Keith and I, who were writing a weekly section for the Rutgers Review at the time, admired that kind of forward thinking and immediately arranged plans to interview him.

Now, unfortunately, we never got the opportunity to meet Vermin. The time for the interview came and went, and he simply never showed up in our offices. We assumed that he was off on official campaign business, but it turns out that the Student Center security simply refused to either let him upstairs or call us. By the time it was all cleared up he had left town and we never got to meet him, not that it stopped us from writing the article as if we had.

In any event, since I completely dropped the ball regarding yesterday's primary, annoying the man who designed that fancy Donk-Cision 2004 logo up there, I figured I'd dig out that old issue and reprint some of Vermin Supreme's most trenchant political positions.

Vermin Supreme Promises:

• To do something about the weather. "Too damn hot" in the summer, "Too damn cold" in the winter. Possibilities under study include a) a weather dome over the entire city for climate control; b) physical relocation of the entire city to a more hospitable climate; or c) simply throwing out anybody who complains.
• To pave over everything that hasn't been paved over yet.
• To make the homeless disappear. Poof! As if by magic, presto chango. Out of sight, out of mind. Where did they go? Oh, well, you don't really want to know now, do you? Didn't think so.
• To achieve nuclear capability for little towns, taking no more gruff from neighboring municipalities over contaminating "their" groundwater and other such "sour grapes."
• To tax the bejeezus out of everything.
• To make crime against the law! Combat illiterates! Fight the unemployed! And stop pregnant teenagers! These statistics can easily be lowered by manipulating the figures on which they're based.
• To appoint lots of committees to look into all sorts of things.
• And, of course, no comment on disarmament through deployment.

Yep. More snow. Let's see what else is going on...Oscar nominations? Don't really care. Super Bowl? Care about as much as Paul Katcher. New Hampshire primary? I was playing tennis and missed pretty much everything; hopefully I'll have something next Tuesday to justify Whybark's fancy logo.

But wait! Here's something that piques my interest! Following up on my Big Apple Blogger Bash report on Saturday, we are oh so sorry about having to take you down...deeks!

AZ, the elaborate multilevel Asian restaurant at 21 West 17th Street, has closed. The original chef, PATRICIA YEO, left last summer, and the owner, JIMMY HABER, plans to renovate the place and reopen it with a different focus.

I guess now it's only the former worst bar in New York, huh? And here's an idea for a new focus, Jimmy: maybe you and your staff can not act like douchebags! Focus on that! (Thanks to Josh of the Food Section, a very cool site about local culinary goings-on, for spreading this fine news.)

Sometimes when I write a long piece that I'm not very sure about I immediately follow it up with a short link-post so that the long piece isn't right there on top like King Kong attacking the Empire State Building.

Um...well...let's see what we have cluttering up Donk HQ...oh, yeah! It's been far too long! Once again...IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!!

Thoughts Following Week Three of My Improv Class. (And no, I never wrote anything about Weeks One or Two just in case the whole thing turned out to be a horrible mistake and I abandoned the whole project like an unwanted Christmas-present-kitten left by the side of the road.)

I left class last night definitely feeling a little better than I did after the first two. There were a moments in front of the group when I felt like I had some control over the scene I was helping to create, rather than just floundering about desperately trying to think of something, anything to say or do. It wasn't a great work of theater for the ages or anything, but it was a logical scene with characters and a relationship and even one or two laughs, a scene where I wasn't praying for someone to end it, and it felt like something I could build on. Of course, there were several less successful moments, but the class ended on the high note and overall I'm beginning to feel a little less lost.

Now, as for why I'm doing this: I've been thinking about taking this class or something similar for a few years now. First off, I have practically zero experience in any sort of performing art. In fact, since my supporting role as Sohovik in the Jonas Salk Middle School Production of Damn Yankees, my lifetime performing resume consists of: 1) being called onto a Seattle stage during a performance of Fool Moon for some audience-participating clownery, and 2) dressing up as a cat down in Wildwood, NJ and performing some cat-themed observational humor for 60 seconds. Basically, two spur-of-the-moment events, although I guess we can also count officiating my friends' wedding.

Anyway, despite this lack of experience, or more likely because of it, I have always just assumed that my writing style would translate really well and I would be naturally good at whatever comedic performing art I attempted. One of my 2003 resolutions was to try stand-up comedy, and while the aforementioned Meow Mix thing probably would technically qualify, late in the year I decided that I'd rather not regret never having done it, amended that resolution to include a more group-oriented activity, and signed up for the class.

Of course, so far it's turned out to be a bit tougher than my idealizations. I'm pretty well trained in choosing words carefully and rearranging and editing extensively, and an on-the-fly form of performance such as long-form improv has much less, if not no, use for those skills (not that after three classes I can claim to be an expert on what sorts of skills it would have use for). Once an idea or movement is expressed, well, there at is, out there in the world, and there's no going back. A few times so far I've said or done something and immediately wanted to take it back, but that just isn't an option. You have to move forward and try to make it work; it's like driving too fast and getting off the wrong exit: you can try driving in reverse back onto the highway, but more likely than not it's gonna get ugly real quick.

In any event, I'm finding the whole experience to be fascinating, if a bit scary, with lots of unexpected insights and lessons about humor and what makes a piece work. I hadn't even planned to write about it on this site, but It's a great subject worth exploring, and I'll hopefully be able to convey a bit more about the class and the theory behind it as I go along.