Happy Birthday Corey!!!

36 Years ago a wonderful human being was born. Happy Birthday Corey... you silly, silly man.

Wanna know what sucks?

Riding your bike to a show at 8:30pm and not realizing how cold it is until you're a quarter of the way there and it's too late to turn back. Did you know it takes longer to ride going against the wind? It's also hard to brake when your hands are frozen.

Want to know what sucks more?
Riding home at 10:30pm in the pouring rain. We both got stuck in this situation riding home from different places last night. Each pedal rotation becoming increasingly harder as our jeans were weighed down by cold, cold rain. It's also not so easy to see when rain is dripping from your helmet and splashing up from your wheel. We walked in the door like wet dogs. Wet dogs that needed a nice cup of hot chocolate to make it all better.

Success!

This weekend was productive and (finally) sucessful.

I spent Saturday styling and attending a friends wedding - lots of fun! The wedding was in Hammond, IN about an hour away from us, so we just stayed in a hotel out there. Corey and my friend's boyfriend enjoyed pointing out who was from the city and who was a local to Indiana... trust me, it was easy to tell.

We came home Sunday morning and needed to rush back out for a couple of auditions, later to get back home for a bridal trial. The plan was just to take the train, but it was so gorgeous out that we quickly aired up the tires in our bikes and enjoyed riding to the auditions and then a late lunch. It was so nice, plus great exercise though my ass is bruised today. I think I need a new seat.

Best part of the day besides finally enjoying some fresh air and decent weather? We got cast from one of the auditions! Corey and I are now both a part of the Chicago Comedy Company. It's a short form improv company actually located in Schaumburg. I wouldn't normally want to drive to the suburbs for regular shows, but the theater is under new ownership. It's now run by Lillie Frances. She brings some serious cred to the place, she's been a regular name in the improv world for quite some time, having taught and improvised at iO, Second City and throughout Chicago. Besides being some regular stage time with CCC, it actually pays... what? Crazy, I know. Plus, there will be corporate workshops etc. Hopefully with Lillie's connections and talent this will be a success.

Now it's Monday, I'm back to work and my insides are crawling. I hate working for someone, I hate working for here. I just want to be back outside on my bike.

- Mo

Pimpin'

I know Pete's going to give me a hard time if I don't post something soon, soooo...
Here's what's up: Things are hectic as always. Lots of auditions coming up... I hate saying that because I'm afraid it'll jinx it, but oh well. I'll just leave it at that and not risk anything by saying who the auditions are for.

I'm also currently doing a 4 week run with an improv group called Statim at the Playground Theater. Good ol' improv, only with an electric bass and a snare drum. Pretty fun actually.

A couple other new opportunities came up for me. One is a potential teaching gig. Basically I would do a seminar of sorts for new young models and actors. I'd give hair and makeup tips. It's for a company that produces model and acting magazines, so it could lead to some great connections. I wouldn't be able to quit my job or anything, it's just a summer gig - twice a month, but still could be really cool.
I've also been asked to do some extra work in a National Geographic show, produced by Bill Curtis' production company. I'm pretty excited about that one. It doesn't pay much and I'd have to miss work because of the daytime shooting schedule, but who cares? It would be awesome! My goal is to seek out Bill Curtis and get him to say funny stuff, because he has the best voice. I'll find out more details today, but hopefully they also need a hair and makeup person...I'm always pimping!

I'm also working on a few different writing projects, some my own, others with Corey and other friends. More details of those will come up soon. Maybe that's why my blog isn't the most intellectually stimulating piece of literature. All my brain power is going elsewhere... sorry.

- Mo

So Mo did her update, I'll put mine here, too. I'm currently in rehearsals for a couple of improv shows I was cast in through a group called Theater Momentum. One show is called "Moniker" and it explores how one person's life is affected by the nicknames they are given. We're still working out the form, but it's coming along. It's looking like we'll be getting 2 different nicknames for the same person and playing out their life in parallel universes and seeing how the different nicknames color the same world otherwise. Interesting idea. Fun cast, too. It's a nice mix of experienced and new improvisers. There's enough experience to keep the things moving along, but enough fresh attitudes to remind you that this shit is fun when you let it.

The other show is called "Missed Connections", and I may have touched on this in an earlier post, but the show explores the people behind those "Missed Connections" postings on places like craigslist.org and such. It's a great concept, as those "ads" range from hilarious to absurd to sad and depressing to adorable to desperate to pathetic. It's very character and emotion driven and the cast for this show is fantastic, too. I'm really looking forward to these shows. They'll be running on Wednesday nights from June 6 to August 1, with no show on July 4. I'll be sure to post more when it gets closer to opening.

Other that that, a few auditions here and there, and doing some writing projects with some friends. Both Mo and I are looking to expand our writing skills and are looking towards maybe taking some classes to that end, too. We shall see. I just want the weather to get nicer so I can start riding my bike to rehearsals again. Seriously? It's late April and it's still coat weather? This is ridic. Come on already.

- Corey

The Stuntman

We spent this weekend in Rock Island at the annual Gilda's Club benefit at ComedySportz. As usual, Pete and Josh met up with us (missed you Nikki).
The shows, the food and the company were all great as usual. Pretty much what we've come to expect in Rock Island. What we didn't expect was that we'd encounter "THE STUNTMAN."

Friday night started out normally. Great show, then had some dinner at the Blue Cat and then met some up with some folks for beers and trivia. The four of us then decided to finish the night with some drinks at the bar across the street from our hotel. It's a great dive bar with super cheap beers and complimentary peanuts where you can throw the shells on the floor. (I know, that's nothing special, but I enjoy it). Josh was at the jukebox picking out some songs, when some guy befriended him. He was just some happy-go-lucky drunk, about our age and though Josh tried to politely ignore him, the guy wouldn't leave him alone.

At one point he yells across the room for Josh to come sing with him. Apparently, this dude has selected the most beautiful song in the world on the jukebox and it was imperative that he have Josh join him. Well, none of us knew the song, but I'll tell you, songs about whores really are beautiful.

A short time later, we thought the guy had forgotten about us, but Josh's hold on him apparently couldn't be shaken. The guy brought us a pitcher of beer. OK, that was very nice and drunk of him. And we continued with our conversation.
We were interrupted yet again when he came over with a salt shaker, a shot of tequila and a lime.
"Have you guys ever seen The Stuntman?" He then proceeds to pour out some salt onto the table and line it up with a credit card. He then snorts the salt with a rolled up dollar bill, drinks the shot and then... wait for it... squeezes the lime in his eye. IN HIS EYE!!!!

We were all stunned. What was wrong with this idiot? "I've done this 57 times now!" We're still not sure if he's done the stuntman 57 times or stupid stunts like this 57 times.

Next he tells me not to worry because he had a glass eye. I didn't believe him, so he pried open his lid and showed me his eyeball, which of course was not glass. "You're a 36C aren't ya?" He proudly proclaimed that he didn't really have a glass eye, but wanted an excuse to check out my boobs. I wanted to be offended, but just burst out laughing. It takes a lot of balls to do that to a girl who's surrounded by three guys.

And then he bought us another pitcher. You're the man, drunk guy. The STUNT-man, that is. Thanks for the memories.

And the Madrid good luck continues

That's right folks, the trend of the Madrid's being lotto winners has continued (see earlier post). I'm not even joking!!!!! Given that two members of my family on separate occassions had won the lottery (one for $50,000, one for $1 Million) we figured we needed to buy a ticket too.
So this weekend we bought our first lottery tickets ever (well I bought it because it's the Madrids that are lucky, not necessarily the Rittmasters) - three of them spending a total of $3. We had no clue what we were doing, but eventually figured it out. And boy did it pay off. Checked our winnings last night and... We won, we won, we won!!!!
Our total? Get ready for this..... $3.

Whoo Hoo!

Don't worry. I won't let this change me. I'm still the same Monique I've always been and though Corey has a few splurges planned, he will still be the down to earth guy we all know and love.

I'm in a movie! Take that Corey

Corey's not the only one that's in cool videos. Actually, he's in this movie too a little, but you know how editing goes.
Anyways...

From the guys that brought you, "In the Sheets" our friends Nick, Dan and Chris entered yet another Vidiocy. Vidiocy is an iO competition in which you draw the title of your movie and have only 31 days to complete a 10 minute or less video
I'm a constantly impressed by the work these guys do, not just with compelling stories, but quality work of their movies. We were thrilled to help out by being extras in their latest project which took 2nd place!

Fashion Sense

To see all of their movies, click here

I Want My MTV

Check this out. Here's the video for the Blackpool Lights song "Empty Tank" that I appear in and Mo did the hair and makeup for. It's bad to end sentences with prepositions, I know, but there's no time to sweat that when you're rocking out!

- Corey

Festival Wrap-up

Well the big Der Monkenpickle reunion has come and gone. And it ranks up there as one of my top-5 weekends of all-time. Just so much fun to hang with hilarious and talented old friends, get to schmooze with other really talented and hilarious people, and put on crazy fun shows for frenzied crowds. It's hard to top that. Some highlights of the weekend, in no particular order:

- the scene from Friday night's show that began with an awesomely staged golf cart chase and culminated with the four of us hovering over a dude in the front row.
- the BBQ Tour: Thursday night at Gates, Friday night at Bryant's, Saturday night at Oklahoma Joe's. I think my heart just stopped.
- Jeremy's new nickname "Old Bullets"
- the song Jason improvised at Bar Natasha
- Ed ending the entire festival on a cartoon-esque take to the crowd
- the classroom scene in Saturday night's show where we threw in a bunch of references to an old sketch from back in the day.

There are more, but I have to stop or this post will just be one long string of bullet points. Overall I just had so much fun, and I was amazed by how easily the four of us fell back into that comfort level of performing with each other, especially since it had been so long since we'd been on stage together. I'm really grateful to the KCIF committee for coordinating this reunion. It was 99% perfect. The only way it could have been better was if Eric could have been there, too, but I can't blame him. The opportunity to go to Asia and perform with Cirque is obviously more important, so I can't blame him. If he had been able to make it, both Jason and I had the idea that we would perform one of our old sketches to close out our sets. Ironically, we were both thinking of the same sketch. But it just didn't feel right to do that without Eric.

Regardless, it was just so much fun to hang out, joke around, giving each other a hard time, and just geniunely enjoying spending time with some old friends. I feel truly proud to have been a part of this group and really lucky to get to recapture a small taste of the old glory days. I'll try and post pictures later.

I need a nap.

- Corey

*** UPDATE *** - There are a ton of photos from the festival which can be found online here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/professorchrisgo/sets/72157600028955117/

All photos were all taken by Chris, the official festival photojournalist. There are pictures from both the local acts weekends as well as the national acts weekend. Great stuff here by Chris