Yesterday gem and I went to Hollywood for a Kindred Throats show! We saw them at the Coup de Comedy Festival, and they were amazing. They’re the sketch comedy / musical duo that sang to gem, and they were the recipients of gem’s cookies!
Before the show, we also so much food at Hollywood Thai Restaurant. Oh my god, it was delicious.
Eventually I dragged my bloated why-oh-why-did-I-eat-so-much body to the Comedy Central Stage at The Hudson Theatres. gem made a really awesome card for them and, of course, more cookies.
The show was hilarious! I don’t really know how to convey how funny it is, because describing it as funny songs doesn’t really do it justice. There’s audience interaction as well, which is comedic gold. Their opening song was about how the people in the back thought they were safe. During the song, they proceeded to move everyone from the back row closer. Luckily we were already sitting in the front.
On the way out, we saw Todd, one of the members, who recognized her and thanked her for coming all the way out! Woo! She was wondering if they’d recognize her, but I’d sure recognize someone who seemed to always bring me cookies. I might be in love with food.
The Coup de Comedy Festival 2015 was this weekend, hosted by UCI’s Improv Revolution – a four day festival celebrating all sorts of comedy. Wednesday opened with Improv Revolution and Live Nude People playing together, referring to themselves as Nude* Revolution. Great name, and great comedy.
It was followed by The Resistance. They were amazing last year, so I was really looking forward to them this year. The video at the top depicts a flashback scene they performed of a pirate’s curse. The Resistance improvises action movies. This one was about kids finding a skeleton with a map to a treasure, full of karate, the nerd winning the girl, and useless adults. I didn’t realize until that day that Derek Mears, who I had just seen with Dr. God, was performing with them. Awesome!
Here’s another scene near the end – a karate montage.
The night ended with Delicious Moments, a duo who switches characters rapidly, usually going back and forth between roles during a single conversation. It’s, uh, long-form, I suppose. They don’t really do scenes exactly. They just talk on stage about their show, and then things happen. It’s pretty funny.
Thursday started with Improv X, but I didn’t catch it. My comedy Thursday started with KINDRED THROATS! They don’t style their name like that or anything. I just really loved them.
Kindred Throats consists of Kevin Stafford and Tom Risenmay who play guitar, sing, and generally act hilarious. Unlike most of what I’d seen so far at the festival, Kindred Throats performed sketch rather than improv (although bits are of course improvised).
This was the only show gem could attend, and I’m glad she did. During one part of the show, Kindred Throats began talking about various historic seats in the theater, including the two seats in the front for lovers. One pointed out gem and me and while the other pointed out gem and the guy sitting on her other side. They kept amusingly confirming that they were looking at the same two people while obviously being in disagreement until settling on gem and the other guy.
Once they were singing directly to gem, I had to record it, and you can see the video above. Basically, they’d get to parts in the song where they’d talk about something the lovers would do, and then they’d abruptly stop and stare until they did it. God it was funny, and I think gem really enjoyed it too.
After the show, I watched Sparks to Fire, which was a bit stand-up, a bit improv, and… a man eating a cactus?
L.A. Beast was there. I hadn’t heard of him, but he’s a competitive eater who also eats strange things on YouTube for entertainment. I saw him eat a dozen raw eggs, including the shells, a whole, raw cactus, and three ghost peppers. He apologized to the women in the audience, noting that his male fan base is much larger than his female fan base.
After the show was Stand-Up on the Spot with Jeremiah Watkins, but I skipped it. I did, however, see Kevin and Tom from Kindred Throats outside getting ready to leave. gem was on her way back to UCI, hoping to bring them homemade cookies. After telling them about the cookies, they agreed to stay and wait, so I had a chance to talk to them for a bit.
They really were in disagreement over who to pick. One wanted to pick gem and me and realized we were there together, while the other wanted to choose gem and the other guy because the other guy was using his phone to record the entire time. They said sometimes they choose people who are obviously together, sometimes they choose obvious strangers, and once they just chose two guys who were clearly just friends.
I think they enjoyed their cookies!
I didn’t attend Friday at all. I missed some Open Mic, Red Door & Triumph, The Mechanicals, OBGY-Not Sketch Show, and Stand-Up with Zoe Rose Moacanin.
Saturday was the last day (and a bit annoying due to breaks). It began with Second City’s Really Awesome Improv Show followed by a two hour break.
I spent that break taking a picture with Peter the Anteater.
Two pictures, actually.
And I also read Scott Pilgrim and messed around on my phone.
I also found this graffiti. THIS ART: FULL OF POOP?
After the break was Doctor Who Live! – an improvised episode of Doctor Who. I don’t really care for Doctor Who, but it was still entertaining. After another two hour break during which I read more, I watched the Count Gumdrop improv performance, which was pretty funny. The night ended with Impro Theatre’s Chekhov UnScripted and Revolutionary Comedy Award honoring Keegan-Michael Key, but I bailed on those to head to my friend’s place for a game night.
Friday night was ImprovCity’s Comic Book Day Show, and it was a lot of fun. The cast all dressed as comic book characters. There’s Alex in the center in his Rocket Raccoon costume. It’s definitely not Bark.
They gave out free comics too! I got Legendary Star-Lord #5 and Star Wars: Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir #1.
The show was hosted by Lumpy the Space Princess Lumpy Space Princess, and she did a good job as her too!
Here’s another shot of the performers. I wanted to ensure one with Speed Racer’s helmet got posted too. After the show, a lot of us went to BJ’s. I got a nice low calories salad, a martini, and then a delicious and unhealthy pizookie.
Today’s actually Free Comic Book Day, so I headed to Alakazam. I got the Jurassic Strike Force 5 one-shot, Terrible Lizard, Bodie Troll, Fight Club, and BOOM! Studios Ten Year Celebration 2015 Free Comic Book Day Special. I’m excited to sit down with these later, but I have plans tonight. I just finished preparing food for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight potluck. Hopefully Pacquiao wins!
Last weekend was full of improv (as any good weekend should be). First, I saw HIStory/HERstory at ImprovCity again as well as their Thursday Night BS (Basic Scenes). The Thursday Night BS was one of the best improv sets I’ve ever seen. I felt like I was lagging behind, like I was still cracking up at the last funny thing when the new one came along. So. Good.
I saw the premiere of HIStory/HERstory on April 2, but gem didn’t get a chance to see it. I decided to see it again with her. This time it was shorter as they’d cut some skits. It was still great, and I understood why they cut what they did. You can see the Sasquatch family above. It still has a performance left at Second City Hollywood on May 6, so you can still check it out!
On Friday I went to the second night of the OC Improv Fest, hosted by Spectacles Improv Engine. I missed the first night because I wanted to see ImprovCity. I went with gem to this too, and we ran into James while we were there.
The night opened with Well-Behaved Villains, a team from La Habra High School. Following that was CIA – the Center for Improv Advancement. These were two teams I’d never seen. Next was IFL, which is always good.
After that was Big Yellow Taxi. I’d seen them before but was glad to see them again. They had Josh as the guest driver.
My favorite Spectacles team, The Mechanicals, played next. Who knew Alex would make such a good princess?
Jetzo.
Jetzo was amazing. They’re a two-man team performing kabuki-inspired improv. There was a lot of music and interpretative dance, and it was freaking hilarious.
There was also strange grinding on Michael.
He seemed just a tad red. I assume that he meant he was having a good time.
I don’t really remember why they got undressed at the end, but, yup, they did. I would love to see Jetzo more in the future.
Following Jetzo was Kind Strangers from iO West performing Tennessee Williams, and after them was KanYay! West. I called them “the cutest team” when I saw them at the OC Improv Fest 2013. Then there was White Women, comprised of seven very funny black men.
And then Rococo. Rococo was an improv troupe that included former Live Nude Lilan Bowden. I kind of stared in disbelief before looking over at gem. She just looked back and then said “Is that Lilan?” I was hoping to say “hello,” but I couldn’t find her later. I messaged her on Facebook the next day to tell her how excited I was to see her perform and that was a fan of LNP. I later messaged Alex and gem. “Lilan responded to me and I feel like a teenager girl who can’t. Even. Which is also how I felt when I first met you, Alex, so there’s that.”
The evening ended with Ranger Danger and the Danger Ranger, one of my favorite teams. How can two people be so funny?
I didn’t get a lot of pictures on the third night, but here’s one of Dr. God. I’ll get to them. I came with gem again, and we also ran into James.
The first block consisted of The Lobby, Galapagos, Holiday Road, Pick and Roll, and Now Improv. I particularly enjoyed Holiday Road.
The next block opened with Paul Vaillancourt’s Man Vs. Movie. It was a one-man, long form improvised action movie, and it was pretty great. Red Door followed, who I saw at last year’s Coup de Comedy and liked a lot. Pawn Takes Queen was third before Dr. God performed.
Dr. God has an interesting formula. After getting a suggestions, they monologue on the suggestion based on something from one of their lives, and they do improv based on that. I saw them last year and enjoyed them even more this year. If my memory is correct, it seemed like they did less monologues and more improv this year, but regardless, awesome stuff. Derek Mears was with them, an actor and stuntman who also performed at ComedySportz.
In the photo above, there’s a visit to the gynecologist.
Derek Mears must have been talking about something large.
And then he joined the scene to play the part of a tennis net.
That plank seems to have bad form… haha it was great.
Here’s an interesting twist. For most of us, the festival had a fee, but not for gem, who won $50!
The last block of the night opened with FlySpace. He spent an entire scene getting pet there.
After FlySpace, The Lusty Horde perform a long-form scene as an improvised sci-fi/fantasy scene. They were awesome, but it was getting too late for me. We left after The Lusty Horde, unfortunately missing Outside Dog and The Illegitimate Stage.
It was a great weekend for improv, and I have more tonight and this coming week. Woo!
My weekend was pretty packed with awesomess, which is the right way to pack a weekend.
Friday night I had dinner with my mom and Pete. Pete made tacos, tostadas, and taquitos. It was super delicious.
Mom offered to bake me a cake because this was the first time I was seeing her since my birthday. I chose chocolate, and I chose right.
After dinner we watched The Devil Wears Prada. I’d never seen it, and I enjoyed it.
Saturday I helped Darnell and Alex move to a different apartment in the same building. Alex’s parents were there as well. It’s always nice to see everybody, especially when Henley is as cute as he is. I think he’ll enjoy having the new patio! He really seemed to enjoy playing with the water – scooping it out of one container and pouring it another or simply drinking from the dog’s water bowl, haha.
I was so busy that I expected to miss celebrating Pi Day, but Hal and Mary Margaret brought a peach pie. After moving that evil dresser, it was good to eat pie!
Saturday night was ice skating time! My friend’s wife lives in Canada, but she was visiting, and he decided to celebrate with some ice skating.
We were a little late getting there because we stopped at Pinoy Pinay. I would have taken pictures, but I jumped right into the food. Yum yum.
There was a small collection of ouchies in our group, but we had a great time. Or at least I had a great time! I assume we all did!
Afer working up an appetite ice skating for a couple hours with Sterling, Chrissy, gem, Kelly, and JT, we headed to Umaya Ramen.
I shared some mini-burgers and had a few beers.
Eventually we found the lounge in the other room and finished off the night with sake. It was a wonderful evening.
Sunday was mostly a relaxing day at home (full of chores too actually). However, it started with a clown show! I saw The π’s of March, starring Clown Collage. It was absolutely hysterical. I could try to explain how great it was to see Alex, I mean Fransuave, drink some Tobasco, freak out, desperately drink something to cool off his mouth, realize it was Fireball Whiskey, and freak out some more. Or I could try to explain how he did cat’s cradle with a woman in the audience, how funny it was when he basically bowed out, yielding the applause to her. Or how much awesome it was when he came back later, doing it with a big rope, and how funny it was when the girl screwed up when she tried to help with the rope. I could talk about how much I loved watching Babs try to bake a cake to LazyTown’s Cooking By The Book before she heard Lil Jon join the mashup. But, well, it’s probably not very funny to read my descriptions of it.
I did get pulled out of the audience again this time though! The clowns performed Julius Caesar, but as they’re mute, they needed people to be their voices. I got to read the lines of Julius Caesar, which degraded into “blah blah blah.” It was a lot of fun!
Later that day I ate some bibingka, wathced Netflix, worked on my ticket stub organizer, and relaxed.
Last year was a pretty fun year. I was pulled on stage during a clown show, went stand-up paddleboarding, and went wakeboarding. I attended Katie and Matt’s wedding. I started doing yoga this summer and have stuck with it consistently. I switched to a bodyweight workout routine and have been doing that regularly. San Diego Comic-Con was a lot of fun, and for the first time, the roles were reversed; people asked me for pictures. (I was in my Aquabats costume.)
I attended a ton of concerts, including but not limited to Reel Big Fish, The Maxies, The Originalites, The Aquabats, Koo Koo Kangaroo, GOGO13, Half Past Two, Sugar Stems, The Interrupters, The Holophonics, The Skatalites, Suburban Legends, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Los SuperSpies, and so many more. I watched a bunch of improv, mostly at ImprovCity and Spectacles. I attended some Risk! Live. I went to a Teenage Mutant Pizza Party and the Scott Pilgrim Picture Show with CinemAttack! There was Dapper Day, Walking with Dinosaurs, a Civil War reenactment, The Great Gatsby party, the OC Fair, and LA Kiss. There was some Yadi Presents burlesque, a performance of Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Big River – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Man of La Mancha, and other performances. Lots of fun stuff.
Edit: Oh, man, how can I forget the Tall Ships Festival or being a guest on the Twisted Nether Blogcast?!
Work continues to go well. I cleaned out my closet. And yes, that’s worth mentioning. I attended Henley’s first birthday party and gave him a big smile with his present. I finished off Mists of Pandaria and started Warlords of Draenor. Sorry, but a little video games had to leak into this too. I got my backlog (my list of games, books, movies, etc.) that were purchased but never finished down to 340, which is pretty good. When I started counting in April, I had 471 items that needed to be beat/watched/read. I got rear-ended while driving for the first time. That’s not really much of an accomplishment, but I handled it at least. It was my 10-year high school reunion a few months back, and that was a lot of fun. I also cooked a bunch – stuffed bell peppers, pizzas, calzones, salads, salami wraps, pork chops, steaks, a cake, lemon bars, brownies, and more delicious things. I, a straight man, went out for a drink with a man I met on a dating site. I got stung by way too many bees.
It was a cool year.
2015 started with a party with close friends. Just a minute or two into the year I got to witness a friend propose to his girlfriend.
Thursday night I saw ImprovCity’s second Thursday Nightmare. They take a name and short synopsis of a B-movie horror films and improv a performance of it. It’s pretty hilarious! My friend Alex Bower came up with it, and I was super excited to see it, especially because I missed the first one due to being sick (stupid bees).
At the request of another friend who couldn’t be there because… well, the poor woman is being forced to live far away from home in some strange land known as “Paris, France,” away from ImprovCity and… well, it’s just so sad that I can’t continue. But she asked me to record it so she could watch! Here they are! And don’t forget to change the quality setting so it doesn’t look too blurry.
First there was Night of the Leapest. Watch out!
Next was Ice Scream with a very strange premise.
C.H.U.D.? This is pretty great and should be the official version.
The night ended with The Host. And no, it’s not the the Stephanie Meyer title.
Friday night was the 2nd Scott Pilgrim Picture Show, an amazing interactive film screening by CinemAttack at the Frida Cinema in Santa Ana. The idea is similar to screenings of the Rocky Horror – a movie with lots of audience participation. I bought this poster along with a poster representing the original Scott Pilgrim Picture Show from last year too. I didn’t even notice until later that the one for last year was signed by Tyler Jacobs, the creator, and numbered.
Audience participation, a costume contest, garlic bread, a light show, and more. What’s not to love?
gem and I got there about 45 minutes before the doors opened so we could hang out. I had to get a picture of the marquee!
Even though bread makes you fat, they handed out garlic bread to the people waiting in line. Sweet!
The walls were plastered with flyers for the Toronto International Battle of the Bands, the Katayanagi Twins, Sex Bob-omb, the Clash at Demonhead, and more. It was a pretty nice touch.
There was a photo op with Scott Pilgrim and a photographer. They said they would post all the photos on Facebook and then you could go find and tag yourself and save the photo. However, I’ve yet to see them posted. In addition, only a handful of people got to take pictures with this before everyone filed into the theater. After the screening, it was already gone. They said people could take the flyers, so I suspect someone might have grabbed this early. Oh well.
Edit: They posted them! Here I am chilling with Scott! The photo was taken at the CinemAttack photo booth, so credit goes to their photographer whose name wasn’t mentioned. They encouraged sharing the photos, so I think it’s cool that I’m posting it here.
Overhead, a CinemAttack! banner was hanging. CinemAttack is the events company hosting the Scott Pilgrim Picture Show. It was created by a man named Tyler Jacobs. While I’d been looking forward to the event for some time, I hadn’t realized until the night before the show that Tyler Jacobs is Christian Jacobs’ (the MC Bat Commander, lead singer of the Aquabats) and Parker Jacobs’ (lead singer of GOGO13) brother. The a pretty rad family. I’m also glad I found Tyler Jacobs’ independently of his brothers. I had a moment to stop and say hello to Tyler as well, and he was quite friendly. I’m glad I did.
You’ll also notice the movie was being shown in the Chaos Theater!
With the posters I purchased, I received two bags of “coins for throwing!” When an evil ex is defeated, you’re supposed to toss coins in the air. It was fun and definitely added to the experience.
Yes, yes, this photo is horrible. Anyways, there was a costume contest as well. There were a number of Scotts and Ramonas as expected but also a Gideon and even a Vegan Police! The guy who came as the Vegan Police even had a green laser.
The movie was a lot more fun to watch in this setting. Words on the screen would direct you to yell lines aloud, and during songs, they would progress karaoke-style. There were also instructions sometimes, including high-fiving a neighbor or jumping up to pretend to play DDR along with Scott and Knives. When an evil ex was defeated, they’d remind you to throw your coins in the air. There were also light shows during the scenes with the bands playing, which really added to the awesomeness. When the Vegan Police came to depower Todd, green lasers shot out everywhere. It wasn’t enough for the fans as they began to cry out for our Vegan Police. Luckily our cosplayer saved the day; when we saw his green laser hit the screen and track Todd, everyone cheered!
After the movie, gem stopped to pose with her ukulele like Scott does with his guitar. I wasn’t sure it was going to come out, because the lighting wasn’t great, but I’m pretty happy with the photo. gem actually hasn’t seen it yet. Hopefully she likes it too.
Last night was the October Ska Parade Lounge! But let’s back up for a second. Michael, a member of the Spectacles Improv Engine, recently made a post with an interesting proposition – he’d share his passion for improv with you by taking you to an improv class and even paying if you share your passion with him by taking him to do something. I contacted him, and while I haven’t done the class yet, he came to the Ska Parade Lounge. Funny story – he used to be really into ska, played bass, and even played with some cool bands. Pretty cool!
Anyways, I met Michael and gem at the Slidebar and also ran into a couple people I know from ska shows – Amit, Max (of Half Past Two fame), and of course, Tazy. His friend Amy, also from Spectacles, joined us as well. It was pretty great night!
The first band that performed was the Bear Brass Band, an amazing brass band with which I wasn’t familiar. Who needs strings? Who needs vocals? Not these guys. I’d love to see them again.
The Paranoias were up next. I’d never heard of them either, but they definitely got me moving.
Failed to Victory played third. Sorry for the crappy photo. F2V was the only band that I knew; I saw them Ska & Punk Night 5 at Centerfield Sports Bar & Grill a week or two ago. They were awesome as I knew they would be.
Lastly, Profesor Galactico performed. I think it was basically The Paranoias with a different vocalist. I’m a little confused, but I had fun. There was a lot more Spanish ska that night than I usually hear. I might not know what the lyrics mean, but that doesn’t stop the music from being good.
All in all, it was a great night! Michael said he’d like to come back to future shows, and Max discussed another show tonight – Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. On that note, I should get going to that concert.
We headed to San Diego on Wednesday after work. After checking in at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter, we took the shuttle to the Town & Country to pick up our badges. By the time we got back downtown, we were feeling hungry and at the Meze Greek Fusion. It was amazing! So many tasty things to eat. We ordered a ton, and everything was great.
Day 1 – Thursday
We started the day with the Science Fiction & Fantasy Literature panel that included Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files) and Marie Lu (Legend). It was pretty interesting.
We also headed to the I Know That Voice: Insights from the Cutting Room Floor panel. I hadn’t heard of I Know That Voice, but it’s a documentary produced by John DiMaggio (voice of Bender, Finn, and a bunch of other cool characters). It was really awesome to hear them talk about voice acting. gem even got a high five from John DiMaggio!
We tried lining up for a panel about NASA, but we didn’t get into it. Buzz Aldrin was there! Too bad I didn’t get to see him. However, there were people dressed as knights battling outside, and gem met one.
Martian Girl
When we were done with SDCC for the day, we headed to the House of Blues for the Aquabats concert! The Aquabats have a song called Martian Girl about a green-skinned, blue-haired Martian. This woman was cosplaying as the Martian Girl, and she was nice enough to take a photo with me. She looked amazing!
I also posed with the Battle Tram of course! The Aquabats played with Koo Koo Kangaroo as part of their twentieth anniversary tour. It was a great show! I bought a 20th anniversary tour t-shirt too. Antonio escaped to the back when the Aquabats took to the stage and the shoving started. I stayed with gem for a while but then let the crowd push me around. I also joined the circle in the back to do some moshing.
There was a battle on stage too as usual.
I had to record it.
After the concert, we showered and then headed to the Geek & Sundry Lounge for drinks and dancing. Now I’m best friends with Wil Wheaton. (Or it might have been a cardboard cut-out. Who knows?)
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