Sightings

The latest uproar here in Chicago is over the parking meters. For our friends back in KC, a little background: The city sold them to a private company who has since adjusted the rates. This means now we're paying out the ass to park. In some places one quarter, which used to buy 30 or 60 minutes now only gets you at best 15, and in some places just 7 minutes. Are you kidding me? I haven't had to keep this many quarters around since we went to the laundromat. For the record, I did not vandalize this meter. However, I echo their sentiment:

Next, I'd thought we gotten past discrimination with this whole Obama election, and yet Walgreens separates our toiletries. I don't even know what makes a toiletry Hispanic. Do they work extra well or not hard enough? Is the deodorant spicy? Is the soap refried? Can I get my toothpaste in green or red? I could do this all day...

- Monique

Mousetraps and Water Torture: A Night of Dangerous Improv

Corey and I are proud (?) to be appearing in a new show starting at the end of this month. "Mousetraps and Water Torture: A Night of Dangerous Improv" at the Laugh Out Loud Theater.



Described as "Jackass" meets "Whose Line is it Anyway?", we'll be playing all the taboo games not usually allowed at most theaters. There's 'Water Deprivation,' the game where one improviser must must have his/her head submerged in a bucket of water during a scene. They can't come up for air until someone tags them out. Also, I haven't decided which game I'm the most nervous about. There's the one where an audience member snaps clothespins on your face, included the dreaded Frankenstein pins on your neck. Then there's also the scene you play blindfolded with mousetraps scattered all around the stage. We had our first rehearsal today and yes, the mousetraps hurt.


If you're in the burbs in March or April, come by and check out a show.

Check in with us to find out our schedule.


- Mo

Gutted.

So let me tell you about our weekend. Mo and I have been just hanging out, relaxing, watching some TV...you know the usual. Oh, and I had an operation and Mo has bronchitis.

I had been experiencing some discomfort in my abdomen for a little while, and being the stubborn dummy that I am, put off going to the doctor for a while. When I finally went, it didn't take but about 15 seconds for the diagnosis to come: hernia. And I'll tell you what I've told everyone else who asked. I have no idea. I don't know that there was ever an "uh-oh" moment when I tried to lift something I shouldn't have or anything. Apparently, that's often the case. I might have just strained the muscle a while ago, and it gradually grew into a hernia. It might have been a weakness in the muscle since birth, and it finally gave out. Regardless, it was becoming painful and nothing was going to change that without surgery. They go in, and patch the hole in the muscle with this synthetic mesh and it makes the whole area stronger once it heals. There are different kind of hernias, I guess, but mine was what's called an "inguinal hernia". It was located on the right side, just below my belt line, but not too low, thankfully.

The surgery was Friday morning, and everyone at the hospital was very nice. They got me all prepped and ready to go. The best part: my anesthesiologist was named Dr. Martini. Really. Let the jokes begin! The good news - the surgery was a success, it only took about an hour and I got to go home that afternoon. The bad news - I apparently had not one, but TWO hernias, one of which was described by my surgeon as "the mother of all hernias". So my recovery time will take a little longer than expected. No lifting anything over 20-25 pounds for the next 2 months. Generally taking it easy for a week before getting back to my daily routine, save for the lifting, and I have a freaky 5" slice across my gut.

It's painful, but the Vicodin helps. I'm managing the pain pretty well. In fact, just sitting or laying around it's not too bad now. It's getting up or sitting down that hurts. And laughing, of course. And when the medicine is wearing off. But I'm getting by. I got a great care package from my mom, and my cousin Anne has been a great help, I'm so glad she lives so close by. Mo has been an awesome nurse, too, especially considering she's been battling bronchitis this whole time. Unbelievable, if you ask me. She's amazing.

So that's been our weekend. Recuperating. Watching movies. Watching the Oscars. Taking medicine. We're like old people over here. But we're good. And getting better. I just re-read this post, and it kind of rambles. That's the Vicodin talking, I think, but what the hell, let's just post it. Also, here's a photo of my incision!

- Corey

09 Bride's Choice Award!

I got an email this evening from The Wedding Wire Network informing me that I have been chosen to receive a 2009 Bride's Choice Award!

"Monique Madrid Styling was chosen to receive a 2009 Bride's Choice Award! This award recognizes the top 3% of vendors from the Wedding Wire Network who demonstrate excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost and flexibility. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the company, the Bride's Choice Awards are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds through surveys and reviews. That means your past clients have spoken on your behalf and chosen you for this honor!"

Thanks so much to everyone for your support!
Monique

Back to writing

We're back to writing again. Not only do we have some shared projects, we also each have our own. We're going to start writing new material for another sketch show as The Union. We've also starting to write again for "Big News." It's a weekly news sketch show that was created by our iO television writing teacher, Michael McCarthy. It used to be up at iO and is now at The Skybox at Second City. It's nice to have an actual deadline and more than anything good practice to get in the habit of writing everyday. It's been a while though, it's not like anything genius is coming out...yet. Gotta get back into the habit.

I'm still working on varies TV scripts and am now directing a friend's one man show. He saw our show at The Annoyance and I was flattered that he liked it so much he asked. Corey just got word that he's been cast in a sketch show that is likely to go up at Donny's Skybox at Second City. Between all this, both of us teaching a class, both of us taking separate classes and the regular and off site LOL shows we may not get to see each other much. Guess it's nice that neither of us have typical jobs right now.


Sorry this post isn't more entertaining, hopefully the habit of writing everyday will lead to more exciting blogs.

- Mo

Suck it, Sprint

After a few years of poor service, incredibly terrible customer service, being hung up on, being billed incorrectly, being outright lied to, and generally not even living up to low expectations we have officially dumped Sprint as our mobile carrier. We didn't call and yell, we didn't write a scathing letter, we didn't do anything rash and instead got the ultimate revenge: we left. Sprint will no longer get my money.

And who will, you ask? Well thanks for asking. Mo and I are now AT&T customers. Because you have to be to use one of these:



So, yeah, we're going to be those people. Deal with it.

- Corey and Monique

What The Netflix?

I logged onto Netflix today to add a few movies to my queue, and I decided to click on the "Movies You'll Love" feature to see what they suggested for me, based upon my ratings of other movies. This is what I'm presented with:

The Fog of War

Because you enjoyed:
This Is Spinal Tap
Fahrenheit 9/11
Arrested Development: Season 2

FYI, The Fog of War is not a comedy, but a documentary with this description:

Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara worked for both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, playing a key role in shaping both administrations' approaches to the Vietnam War. This Oscar-winning documentary directed by Errol Morris traces McNamara's career from government to the World Bank; but it's his work during the Vietnam years that's highlighted in this film, which features extensive archival footage and interviews.

So my questions are, but not limited to, the following:

• how would those three movies link up in any way?
• just Season 2? I rated all the seasons the same way.
• what about that description of Fog of War suggests a fake documentary about a rock band?
• is Netflix just screwing with me?
• should I add Fog of War to my queue?
• did I completely reference myself into a corner when I dropped a Spinal Tap reference in my improv workshop this afternoon with a group of high school kids?
• have you guys seen this: http://www.thetyser.com/? I can't get over how great it is.

- Corey

Happy New Year!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. The end of 2008 was particularly hectic around here. You got the holidays, our shows at The Annoyance Theater, shows at Laugh Out Loud Theater, shows with Rock Island ComedySportz, plenty of visitors from Kansas City coming to stay with us, etc. etc. It's been a ton of fun, but it's nice to have a couple days of quiet with nothing going on.

Looking back, 2008 was a pretty great year around the Madrid-Rittmaster house. Here are some highlights:

- The first performace by The Union (which wasn't named that yet) in January
- I quit my day job in March and began working full time for myself
- Mo wrote a spec script for The Family Guy, had a public reading of it, and will be submitting it to writing agents
- KU won the NCAA Championships in basketball and the Orange Bowl in football.
- Took a trip to Vegas with friends Scott and Lillie and Sean and Nissa and had a ridiculously good time. This is a great travelling group.
- Had our sketch show accepted into the Milwaukee Sketch Festival and put on a great performance, got great reviews, and had a great time.
- Went on a whirlwind tour of college shows in August, with Mo and I each doing about a week's worth of improv shows on campuses across the country.
- Reunited with the guys in Der Monkenpickle for the KC Improv Festival again. This time we had all 5 of us there.
- Took a dream vacation to Portugal and Spain.
- Were accepted by The Annoyance Theater for a 7 week run of our sketch show.
- Witnessed a historic presidential election from the candidate's home base.

2008 was a lot of fun, and was very successful creatively and professionally. The plan is to build on that momentum for '09. Hope yours is even better!

- Corey

Marriage Bed

A San Francisco Treat

Hey everybody, I'm blogging from San Francisco! I'm here with Lillie from Laugh Out Loud for a corporate gig. We taught a workshop on teambuilding and communication and such for a big biotech company out here. It went really well, even though I jacked up a couple exercise intros. I covered well enough that no one was the wiser. Hopefully they liked it enough to bring us back for more workshops and/or comedy shows.

Last night after getting settled in at the hotel, Lillie and I got dinner at a place called House of Nanking in the financial district/Chinatown section of downtown San Fran. It was tremendous. It was small and cramped, with no bells and whistles, just amazing authentic Chinese food. We split some potstickers, then had this incredible sesame chicken that was served with sliced sweet potato (awesome!) and grilled calamari with spinach, onion, and other stuff in this really great sauce. It reminded me of how we don't really have good Chinese food in Chicago. Which is odd since there are so many great ethnic neighborhoods and restaurants, just none that are Chinese in our area.

Tonight we're heading out with some old friends of Lillie's before flying back home tomorrow. It's apparently snowing like crazy in Chicago. Let's all hope we get home with minimal delay, shall we? Thanks.

- Corey

Chicken Head Mo

Wait, what?


Love,
Corey

A Winter's Night

New video from The Union!

You Don't Say

This is what greeted me this morning on the home page of Yahoo. I love the juxtaposition of these two "news" stories:

In case it's too blurry for you to read (weak camera phone...the iPhone countdown is on), the current article I have selected is "Geniuses like Einstein may be gone forever". The "article" just below it is "Watch cat play funny game of whack-a-mouse".

- Corey

20 Seconds

Played a couple shows at Laugh Out Loud Theater last night. Afterwards, the house manager Tim and stage manager Pat talked Briette, Mo and I into going on a late-night adventure. Tim knew of an all night fish place south of the Loop in the city. Why at midnight we decided we needed to drive 35 minutes for fried fish, I don't know, but we did. We had a great time, tons of jokes made, stories shared, etc. One of my favorite parts: when I went to the men's room I saw this sign inside:



















In case you can't see it, it reads: "Employees must wash hands for at least 20 seconds before returning to work. Thank you."

Something about that is hilarious to me. I have images of the way it probably used to be, when workers would only do a quick rinse, and a manager would stand outside with a stopwatch. You know, until they got used to it.

- Corey

The Kiss

Thanks again to everyone in Kansas City. We performed with Tantrum at The Westport Coffeehouse and had a blast!

We're back home now, ready for the Annoyance Theater tonight at 7pm.
Hope you can make it! "Ward & June Are Dead", we'll help you feel better about your own family by showing you how disfunctional ours is.

Here's an appetizer to get you ready for the show...the newest Union video.

Ada's reviews

I'd like to introduce you to a friend of ours. Her name is Ada. She's 4 years old, adorable and super smart, which of course makes her hilarious. She recently (with the help of her mom) started a blog. If you're looking for a good read, laugh or review of some of the latest books and theatrical pieces throughout the city this is a good link to check out.

Our show is too adult for her or else I'd welcome her review. She did how ever watch our "bad date" video. According to her mom, she loved it until Corey threw the candy in my face. We're not sure if she was more offended by the meanness of it or the waste of candy.

Enjoy Ada's blog!

Show biz

Things are staying busy for us as always.

The opening of Ward & June Are Dead went well. We had a nice crowd and great response. Lots of fun!

In the meantime work is going well. We both got calls by a few agents. Corey auditioned for one on Saturday (I couldn't...had to work) and has a couple more after the holiday.

Unrelated to the show, I booked a new gig myself. I am a host for an e-learning project for high school and middle school learners. I got to shoot with a green screen and do a lot of voice over work. It was a great learning experience and resume building and was a ton of fun. Hopefully these jobs keep coming along.

On Monday we head to Iowa for a corporate show to do improv and custom scenes. These are always fun, especially when I haven't learned my lines yet. From there, we'll head to Kansas City. I'm really looking forward to spending time with family and eating a ton. Plus on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we'll do a mini version of our show at The Westport coffee house. I'd love for our KC friends can make it to Chicago to see the full version, but if not, this will be a good chance to see our work.

For those of you in Chicago, if you haven't checked out the show yet come see us tonight at 7pm at The Annoyance! If you have seen it, pass the word along!

- Mo

The Date

Yes!

We'll get back to the vacation updates and photos in a moment....but first....


Yes we can. Yes we did.

Toledo, not Ohio

Though we liked Madrid, we'd felt we'd seen all we wanted and were ready to get away from the hectic big city. Still, we had another day planned there. After a little research, we decided to take a 30 minute train ride to Toledo. The city is beautiful, located at the top of a cliff. This is just the train station folks!After leaving the station there's a long walk to the main part of the city which is surrounded by an ancient way. Once again it was a long climb uphill. The view of the valley and river was absolutely worth it.

Of course since it was a Saturday, I couldn't get away from weddings. These brides follow me everywhere!Toledo is known for several things, quaint shops, an ancient cathedral, some ancient Sephardic synagogues and marzipan (yum!). The town is most proud for being the inspiration for Cervantes, "Don Quixote." He's revered in this little town.

The people were very friendly. It was really nice to be in a slower paced town. We ended the day sitting at a cafe, enjoying a glass of wine with manchego cheese, a local favorite. After which, we walked back to the train station from the other side of town just in time to catch a beautiful sunset.

We give Toledo 5 out of 5 marzipan's!