Tuesday, December 12, 2006

post 322. favorites of 2006.

10. the hives, tussels in brussles. there are two dvds on my top ten list; since i put them on as background, it's the same thing - to me - as putting on a cd and listening to it. i'm just not watching it. this dvd has a good amount of tyrannasaurus hives on it, which was such an underrated album last year. best live show out there.

9. the sword, age of winters. nice riffousness. metal up your proverbial ass.

8. uv rays, night of the living dudes. best show in rochester. flying beer bottles, the uneasy sense that at any minute the place might collapse into one big brawl, mark falling down a flight of stairs. and the band not knowing about it until twenty minutes later.

7. peeping tom, self-titled. there i was, eagerly anticipating my order for "firecracker," the acting debut of mike patton, where he plays a crazy nut who rapes his brother as well as a crazy nut who runs, like, this circus. then i watched about half of the movie, turned it off, took it out of the dvd player, and wondered how i might be able to surgically remove the parts of my brain that had been exposed to it. at least peeping tom was awesome.

6. beastie boys, awesome: i fucking shot that! dvd. dude. don't tell the charming and delightful ms. westra, but i've never been to a beastie boys concert i liked. but this? i went to the little about ten million times to see this movie. (ok, 2 times.) now that it's on video, i can watch and watch.

5. tv on the radio, return to cookie mountain. when david bowie's singing backup? you have to know you're doing something right.

4. gnarls barkley, st. elsewhere. i think rolling stone (for once) got it right: "crazy" is the best prince song prince never wrote.

3. decemberists, the crane wife. "the island" - all three hours of it - is the bomb. and "shankill butchers" is the bomb. and the ten thousand parts of the title track? the bomb.

2. scissorfight, jaggernaut. my proclamation: no other band on this planet riffs as hard as scissorfight. i saw them - finally - this summer and get all goose-bumpy just thinking about it. just fifteen people, standing in front of iron lung, head-banging. awesome.

1. vernon reid and masque, other true self. duh. it's vernon reid, the reason i left the confines of my basement and all that dungeons and dragons and went to rock and roll. his depeche mode cover is, in my opinion, the best thing he's ever done, and his radiohead is a close second. that is, behind all that living colour stuff.

post 321. out at richmond's.

post 320. classes end at brockport.

the semesters just keep getting better at brockport, and i've been very lucky to be able to teach these kids. can't wait until next semester; i'll have a regular improv and an advanced-level course.

in lieu of a final exam, i have my classes perform scenes for the last two weeks, giving them an opportunity to show me they understand the four rules of improv i've taught them over the course of the semester (a mixture of rules from dan diggles'
improv for actors and listening to sean daniels.)

lines from the past two weeks' worth of final scenes, which, taken out of context, seems almost as funny as the scenes they came from:

"4006! you're all fucking dead!"
"what a chaos."
"i've come to return."
"did i just hear the head elf is a dick?"
what about you, cactus?"

in the 11:30 class' final round of "man overboard," it came down to an exciting round of "rock papers scissors infinity" between john p and ryan s.

paul s and i share a tender moment.

the 11:30 class.

it's been really awesome having students from semesters past stop by, say hello and play. here, jr. gets ready to play with the 9:45 class.

scott b, jessie d and katy k do a sign language interpreter scene. with the 9:45 class being much smaller, we were able to get everyone into a bunch of final scenes and blow off the last class with a bunch of games.

the 9:45 class. good kids.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

post 319. not so canadian rehearsals.

with the ivory kid in florida, the opaque posse has given way to not so canadian, a rock outfit the likes of which no one has ever seen before.


Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Sunday, October 15, 2006

post 317. roc-city heroes, part 2.

Vagrants. Disgusting, dirty, disease-infested tramps.

Photon shooed a few away. Whatever material made his hideout’s main portal bomb-proof and laser-proof and impenetrable, even to the entire nucleolectro-rod wielding robots of Planet Zangroc 5, apparently contained some sort of hobo-magnet. There were three of them, all oily-looking and slouching from malnourishment and sleeping on concrete.

One of them said something, something Photon couldn’t hear nor fathom; hobo-speak, he figured. Some secret code of uncleanliness. Even though he hadn’t touched any of them, he checked his super-suit out for smudges, as if somehow the hobos could secret a few dirt stains to his impeccable, quite heroic yellow-and-red costume. He made a note to clean his hands.

Just his luck, to be duped into a hideout that would be home to…well, homeless people. He closed the portal.

“Don’t I fight crime? Am I not the defender of this fair city?” He asked, his voice echoing through the abandoned subway tunnel under Rochester’s exchange street. He didn’t want a response, and really didn’t even expect one; Harvey, that big RIT nerd, was zapping away with his spagmometer at some intricate-looking computer board under the buzzing light of his workbench, that bright, unsafe-looking light. His cigarette smoke curled upwards towards the dank-looking ceiling, weaving in and out of all that…techno-machinery junk he tinkered endlessly with.

“You would think, that after all I’ve done for this city, someone, maybe…I dunno, perhaps, Mayor Duffy? Mizzz Brooks? George Westwing, someone! Someone could elas…elis…enlist…eliminate! Eliminate the vagrancy and dirtiness of all those homeless people at our front door!”

Harvey continued to work, not listening. The spagmometer zapped away.

Photon looked at himself in the windows of his Photonobile that Harvey constructed, parked and poised for action. It was an old Buick stocked with electronic doodads but, Photon never failed to mention, an inadequate sound system. Painted red and yellow, it reflected the white work light like a mirrorball.

“What would happen if the call of Justice were made,” He continued, setting a few stray hairs aright, “and I had to zoom out of here in the Photonobile and the doors of that portal opened up and fwoosh!!! I would no doubt injure some helpless dweeb looking for a handout. AND I’d ruin the paint job.”

*Zap!* *Zap zap zap!*

Photon looked at the back of Harvey’s lab coat. Nuh-erd, Photon thought. Here he was, the favored son of Rochester, battling evil-doers and crime lords and lake monsters, and he was stuck in a secret lab in a…a cave. Like that comic-book guy. The one with the bats. Whatever. Nerds read comic books.

*Zap!*

Why, Photon thought, staring at Harvey’s back and watching that acrid cigarette smoke linger in the air, couldn’t someone recognize that he deserved a little more? Photon took out The Yellowjacket, no thanks to Mixing Girl, or Mixolo…whatever her name was. Didn’t he deserve something else? Maybe an assistant who was a little easier on the eyes? Like that girl he saved from the mechanical bull at Daisy Dukes? Yeah, he thought, a scientist chick that could do all the work Harvey did, but without the smoking and with some really big…
There was a blast. Muffled through distance, but still big enough to throw Photon against the Photonobile and down to a knee. Dammit, he instantly thought, I got my knee dirty.

“What the hell was that?” He looked to Harvey.

“I don’t know,” Harvey said. He himself had been thrown to the ground but still had the ominous-looking spagmometer in his hand. His cigarette dangled from his lip as if ready to jump from it. He looked to The Beacon of Imminent Danger. Harvey set his jaw firmly and took out his cigarette, grinding it under his foot. “Did you turn off The Beacon of Imminent Danger again?”

“Of course I did,” Photon said. “Have you ever heard the noise it makes?”

Harvey threw his hands in the air. “Get into the Photonobile! Go find Colonel Rochester!”

“Yeah, yeah, keep our pants on.” Photon said, again wishing for a better-looking assistant. He jumped into the car and started it with a great rumble of horsepower, the sound made all the more imposing due to the tunnel they were in. Harvey pushed the large yellow-and-red button that opened the portal. With a screech of tires Photon was off, veering dangerously close to a homeless man. Harvey thought he saw Photon’s fist shaking out the window at the poor soul.

Harvey ran to the computer to call for Colonel Rochester, hoping that Photon had remembered to fill the Photonobile with gas. A certain dropping feeling went through his stomach.

Photon was always too busy yapping to remember anything.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Monday, October 09, 2006

post 314. roc-city heroes, part the first.

improv was asked to try to write a serial for rochester insider, something goofy and laden with super heroes from rochester...will it work? i dunno if they'll even take it. but this is the first draft of the opening part.

“Come on, Sal. Time to go.”


Sal was anything but cooperative, and especially when he was the last one at the bar. He snorted and grabbed for a handful of peanuts. “where’duh nuts go?”


“The same place they were when you asked ten minutes ago. I put them away. Sal. Really. It’s two-thirty. And…” Gloria looked out the front window of the Elmwood Inn and saw the light, distant, flashing, from the heart of the mount hope cemetery. “…I really gotta go.”


“You should never deny an old man his drink. Especially when he helped win the war. You know I was the first one at Odenbach shipyards? Right on Dewey. Come on, sweetie, gimme one more. One more for an old war vet’ran. Lemme tell you about the time this gang of thugs used the shipyards…”


Gloria knew that the beacon in the middle of mount hope meant there was serious danger in the Flower City. She also knew that Colonel Rochester would be angry with her if she didn’t answer the beacon in, like, a nanosecond. She also knew Sal wouldn’t budge until 2:45. She noticed she was tapping her foot, a habit she was trying to break. She opened the cooler. “Sal. I’ll make you a deal.”


“The krauts wanted a deal. No deal. Deals are for chumps.”


“I know, but this is a special deal. How ‘bout I give you a few sarsaparillas to take home? For your granddaughters? Didn’t you say they were visiting tomorrow?”


“Stupid communiss son of mine, with those damnable kids. They’re probably krauts.”
Gloria slumped against the beer cooler, and tossed a bowl of peanuts out within Sal’s reach.



***

“Where have you been?” Colonel Rochester said. “Didn’t you see the Beacon of Imminent Danger?”


Gloria pressed her lips together and sunk her head into her shoulders. While she imagined that Colonel Rochester’s job was a tough one, she wished he wouldn’t be so strict. “There was a guy at the bar,” she said, “and he wouldn’t leave, and Steve, the manager, went home early because he said his kid had some thing the doctor said was a cowlick, and then the morning shift never stocks the beer…”


“The safe and resplendent world of bartending must be put to bed when The Beacon of Imminent Danger beckons, Mixology Girl.”


“…I’m really sorry…”


“…and the forces at work tonight in our fair city won’t wait for your bar guests to languish in their debaucherous acts…”


“…I’m really sorry…”


“…unless you’d like to ask them yourself. Ask them if they’ll wait for you to punch out for your day job. Hmph. Can you picture it? ‘Excuse me, Tiger Man and Electrico, can you not spread death and destruction just yet? I’ve got to put crime-fighting on hold so that my spiritually destitute patrons are filled with spirits of another kind…’”


“…Dude!”


There was an audible silence. Colonel Rochester raised one of his grey eyebrows.


“I’m here, now,” Gloria cleared her throat. She tried to remember: Colonel Rochester was the product of another era, a bio-engineered reincarnation of The Flower City’s founding father. One who certainly didn’t know what “dude” meant. “So…like, what do we need to do?” She found she was again tapping her foot.


“I’m afraid that The Buffalo Boys are back in town,” Rochester said curtly. You have to meet up with Photon and…”


Gloria frowned inward. Photon. Jerk. Colonel Rochester was pointing at a map of the city that hung on the wall of their underground headquarters amongst the old Times-Union printing presses, and thought about the last time she had to work with Photon. Pompous, arrogant…he used pomade in his hair, for chrissakes. And his yellow-and-red costume…


There was a giant, muffled explosion that cut into her thoughts. The walls shook, and one of the computers in the room fell with a sparking crash onto the floor. Gloria and Colonel Rochester both fell, Rochester with a sparking, cursing crash. Dust from the girders above them billowed out, and the lights flickered.


“The Buffalo Boys,” Rochester said. "They’re here."

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

post 307. planes rides and nieces.

mean muggin' with hannah.

stephanie gets haley ready for a day on the town.

tuesday evening at o'hare.


post 306. last night in new orleans.

after taking a picture of us, robert said we were the first people to ask him to take their picture since moving to the new cafe du monde on vets. so naturally we had to take another picture with him in it. riz (sorry, buddy, for my aim), robert, art, febreeze.

boogah gets his chew on.

aunt trudy does a little home cookin.'

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

post 305. new orleans, 8.21.

my first bar, dixie taverne, in mid-city. if you look close enough, you can see the water line through the middle of the sign, above my head.

the organization that gave me a 2.9 gpa. go privateers, etc etc.

the 9th ward's new temporary levee. this is the area that busted open and let the mississippi rush through like reggie bush though opponent's defensive lines. there are signs all around the area asking for witnesses to the event; but seeing the houses here i would have to imagine that if you were across the street from this breaking open, you weren't long for this world no matter what you saw or heard. all the following pictures are from the ninth ward, which jessica and riz said wasn't looking as bad as it did; there are construction vehicles around and a lot of bulldozed lots.








jessica and i start our day reproducing a bad marvin sease album cover at the joint. ...always Smokin'

Monday, August 21, 2006

post 304. new orleans, 8.20

the gang - including ma and pa daigle - at tiffin inn.

mimi's in the marigny district.

the water line on a house on loyola.

the falstaff brewery.

aunt trudy, kate, scott, eli, and uncle larry.

scott watches over eli and kate.

sunday mornings of donuts and choco.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

post 303. new orleans, 8.18, 19.

myron and fayard exchange digits at molly's in the quarter.

riz, scott, myron, and i outside the balcony.

palmer, jessica, and riz at the balcony on magazine saturday night.

me at rue de la course on magazine saturday night.
scott at rue. the scene? dead. everyone was apparently at the coffee shop across the street.

one of the katrina cottages. apparently, someone approached st bernard's parish (and fema) and said they could make these small, two-story houses for twenty thousand dollars less than the fema trailers. fema said they'd stop helping if st bernard's parish began using them. the best part about these? two stories, privacy, and there are modules you can add to it at a future date to make it a real, like, home. much more dignity than a fucking trailer.

uncle larry in his office at nunez community college in st bernard's parish. he's nominated for p-tech's (process technologies) teacher of the year award, a national award.






us at the mill friday night / saturday morning. nick, jessica, fayard, erica, laurie, febreeze, scott, jessica, and palmer.

fayard and laurie.

daigle and palmer, post snakes on a plane. it really, honestly, wasn't all that bad. a pre-fab cult movie, sure, but it did what it was supposed to do.

jonathon - riverdale's shining speech and debate prodigy, and erica.

myron - a minister and member of the christian varisty interfaith system - and his wife alyssa...who...uh...i forgot what she does. because i'm a jerk.

riz.

disguises with kate.