Plug x3

Over the course of the next week I have three improv shows, each of them completely different formats.  Please come to all three shows and yell out “proctologist” when we ask for a suggestion.

1. Saturday, 10/18, 9pm @ The Creek in Long Island City, FREEEEEE!

My big improv army Caligula will perform with two other awesome groups.  Caligula does a series of thematically linked scenes, and generally goes crazy-nuts.

2. Thursday, 10/23, 10pm @ The Magnet Theater in NYC, $6 (plus $1 PBRs, for realz)

My two-man improv group Chairman Golem (me and Michael Martin) perform an original one act play, improv-style.

3. Friday, 10/24, 10pm @ The Magnet Theater in NYC, $7

Made Up Musical improvises a… made-up musical.  See me sing and dance and rhyme and such.

. . .

Remember, you can always see my upcoming shows on my upcoming shows page.  If you want to do that.

We Get Into Trouble When We BBQ

Last week somebody put up a little photocopied sign on my apartment building’s front door:  BLOCK PARTY THIS SUNDAY.

At the bottom of the sign someone had scrawled a handwritten note: We get into trouble when we bbq.

I was away from the apartment all day on Sunday.  When I returned at 11pm there were random, broken knickknacks scattered around the sidewalk in front of my building.  Apparently the now-concluded festivities had included a garage sale.

Also, there was an unattended fire in a plastic garbage can.

I went inside to fill a spaghetti pot with water, and when I returned the Crazy Angry Lady from upstairs had already come out with her own pot.  I convinced her that I hadn’t set the fire and that she and I were on the same team, and she expressed her view that the fire was the fault of those people, because god knows where they come from, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if they’d just go back there.

I ignored her theory, and muttered something about how it is not a good idea to leave an unattended fire in a plastic garbage can in the middle of the sidewalk in a residential neighborhood.  Which really should go without saying, but apparently sometimes needs to be said.  Or possibly scrawled on the bottom of a BLOCK PARTY sign:

You will probably get into less trouble if you don’t leave any fires behind.

This story (and that moral) will be included in my upcoming motivational self-help book.  Except in that version I will call out the Crazy Angry Lady on her xenophobia, and she will have an ephiphany and apologize and offer me some of her famous apple cobbler.

Chase and WaMu and Me

Banking with Chase was terrible.  Every couple of months they’d screw up, and blame it on me.  Eventually things would get straightened out, but not before several employees were given a chance to be rude and dismissive.  The subtext was always, “Wow, we’re really scared that you’re going to be so dissatisfied that you’ll move your accounts to another bank!  After all, you’re so poor, and it will have such an insignificant effect on us!  Wow!”

I stuck it out for 10 years, then finally got so fed up that I switched to WaMu last year.  WaMu has been a tad incompetent (e.g. spelling my last name “Philllips” on my checks, then making me we wait a month for replacement checks, then spelling it the same way on the replacements), but unfailingly polite.  Overall, I’ve been satisfied.

A week or two ago, Chase bought WaMu.  I just got a letter: At some point in the near future, all WaMu branches will be transformed into Chase branches, and my debit card and checks will be replaced with Chase-branded versions.

. . .

Please forgive me, Chase.  Trying to leave you was foolish.  I will never defy you again.

National Pizza Month

Do you know Sean Taylor?  Do you know what he’s been doing every year since 2002?  I’ll give you a hint:  It involves eating at least one slice of pizza a day, every day in the month of October.

(In retrospect, that was an overly generous hint.)

I think Sean’s quest excites me for two main reasons:

1. Pizza is delicious.

2. Sean’s level of commitment.  It’s one thing to say, “Hey, this year I’m going to eat pizza every day during the month of October.”  It’s another thing to actually follow through.  And it’s yet another thing to do it for SEVEN YEARS RUNNING.  This year he’s even making a pilgrimage to Chicago (from his typical hunting grounds, the New York metropolitan area). [Edit -- Upon rechecking his blog, I was reminded that he'll also be traveling to New Orleans, New Haven and Philadelphia this year.  Folks, the man is on a mission.]

Here is his blog.

And this is a video recounting day one, 2008 — De Lorenzo’s Pizza, in Trenton, New Jersey.

Sean: May the Gods smile upon you and your awesome quest.