Sun day

We were feeling bad about Molly (Briette's dog) being stuck in the house a lot this week while the three of us were super busy. So on Sunday, we took her to the dog beach.

Unfortunately the pictures are tiny because I took them on my cell phone. If you could see a full version you'd see the HUNDREDS of dogs. It was like the Dr. Seuss book, 'Go Dog Go!' It was hilarious to see dogs of all sizes having the time of their lives. And for the most part, they all got along great.

Though she was timid at first, she finally relaxed and became a true beach babe. She even got hit on a few times... OK humped by other dogs, but whatever.


The one thing she refused to do was go in the water. There were tons of dogs of all sizes leaping and bounding through the waves, but she wouldn't go anywhere near lake. Oh well, guess she's more of a laying around looking hot kind of chick.

July is Movie Month

It seems like we've been seeing more movies than usual this summer, both in the theaters and rentals. Let's see, so far we have seen the following just in July:

All About Eve

Michael Clayton

The Ten

Batman Begins

Hancock

and now Tropic Thunder. We were the recipients of some preview passes to see this one tonight. It's got an incredible cast including Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Tom Cruise, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, Bill Hader and Robert Downey, Jr. I'm not going to go all Siskel and Ebert on you, but trust me...it's fantastic. The movie opens in wide release in a couple weeks and it needs to be on your "must see" list. You won't regret it, I promise.

- Corey

The Union - Friday Night!

Your next chance to see The Union has arrived! We'll be performing Friday night, July 25 at midnight at The Playground. It's part of the "Late Night, Good Times" show and tickets are just $5. Don't forget, as always The Playground is BYOB. So grab a six pack, stay up late, and catch some great comedy. If you show up and tell me you read about the show on this blog, I'll buy you a beer at the Town Hall Pub after the show.

Love,

Corey

Giganto food! (now updated with pictures)

We spent this past weekend in the Wisconsin Dells doing shows for a bunch of youth group kids. The shows were fun, but one of the best parts of the weekend was the all-you-can-eat Paul Bunyan breakfast.

The place was pretty much what you would expect. We sat under exposed wood rafters, at checkered cloth covered picnic tables and sat on long benches. Another difference between this and a typical buffet meal is that a Paul Bunyan meal is done family style. For the authentic frontier experience, we chowed down eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, etc. and ate off of tin plates and mugs. And dear Lord, Mrs. Bunyan knows how to cook. Also, in the complete opposite of Vegas, the meal was only $10! Holy crap!

Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, so we didn't get to enjoy the water parks, but we did go for a ridiculously hard run on an off road that was really hilly. We rewarded ourselves by going shopping at the Outlet Mall. I'm proud to say I got a pair of shoes for 80% off. $65 value for only $13! Corey got a $4 polo shirt and some awesomely ugly shoes. That's right, cheap and proud of it.

- Mo

Movie in the Park

Sorry we haven't blogged in a while. It's been super busy lately. Briette's staying with us for a while, so we've been out enjoying the city.


So far, we've enjoyed many picnics, the Folk and Roots Festival, long bike rides and lots of work. Tonight we enjoyed the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival with our buddy Freddie, his girlfriend Laurel and their neighbors.

We brought our own picnic. Yum, turkey!
Welcome to Chicago, Brie Tonight's movie was the classic 1950's film, "All About Eve".

The Bette Davis movie was a ton of fun, lots of great lines, including the famous quote, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night." Though there was some brilliant dialogue, it was also a little rough. Way too long and too many endings, but that's not really important. It was just a beautiful night with a cool view of the city and a nice classic movie. Yay Culture!

Next Up: Milwaukee

So this is pretty cool: Monique and I submitted our sketch show to the 3rd Annual Milwaukee Sketch and Improv Comedy Festival and were accepted. Our sketch group, The Union, will be performing there on Thursday, August 7th at 7:30pm. We're the last group to go up that night, so that's nice, too. We'll be doing about a 25-30 minute set of some sketches we wrote, some of which we did in Rock Island, along with some new stuff, and some revamped pieces. If you are going to be in or near Milwaukee the first week of August, you should come check it out.

Next we'll be working on getting a longer run somewhere here in Chicago. We'll be submitting to The Annoyance, and also maybe Donny's Skybox at Second City. Down the road, it will be nice to play more festivals, do more runs, etc. There's even been talk about a KC appearance this fall. We'll keep you posted.

- Corey

Vegas Baby!

We're back from our Vegas trip. We went with Lillie (of LOL theater), her husband Scott, Sean (fellow improviser) and his wife Nissa. It was pretty much a perfect vacation.

Please enjoy the next few posts of our ridiculous times...

- Mo



-----------

We started the trip by meeting up with Liz and her husband Doug (who live in Vegas) for dinner at an Italian restaurant. I don't remember the name of the restaurant (it was called Ventano. - corey), but I do remember that it sat up in the hills and looked out over the Vegas strip...

And that the French chef was extremely inappropriate.

We enjoyed lunch on the Bellagio patio at Todd English's "Olives" restaurant.
Lillie pretty much at 'tartare' all weekend. Screw cooked food!
And we gambled our asses away at night. I treated everyone to ninety-nine cent margaritas. Aren't I generous?
.

Guns! (sorry... look away Marcia)

Because we can. That's why. You can do anything in Vegas, including shoot semi-automatic rifles at the shooting range. This one specifically was called, "The Gun Store." They were very nice and extremely professional, so we always felt safe. Corey is such a bad ass with his AK-47.

The girls especially were a little nervous at first. But in the end, Nissa put it best when calling the experience, "Satisfying."
Sean and Corey both shot up Osama bin Laden. Thank goodness. I don't remember what Scott shot, but it was powerful. We were standing four feet behind him and could all feel the kick in it.
I shot a pink AR 15, semi-automatic rifle with a laser scope.
Shot that ninja right up!

Fremont Street

Getting away from the main strip, we all enjoyed the Fremont Street experience. It's especially great with such awesome people!

Ooooh, look at Lillie's sparkly eyelashes!Scott and Lillie dressed up for the occasion...
The ladies are enjoying the crazy light display on the ceiling.
Corey and Sean always bring the party!

Corey's personal cooler

I basically spent the last night on Fremont street on my own. Corey banned me from hanging out with him at the blackjack table. He kept calling me his personal cooler because he'd lose every time I came near him.

Instead I enjoyed a late dinner by myself. It's a pretty weird experience to stand in line for a hamburger with a beer. It was fun though. No really. I had a blast by myself.
All alone. Good times.
I'm having fun. Really, I promise
What? What just happened?

Nerd... I mean "Star Trek Experience"

Last day:

After a ridiculously huge meal at the Paris hotel, we headed to the "Star Trek Experience."

Corey and I left our cool at the door. We went on the deck of the Enterprise, were 'taken hostage' by some Klingons or something...really I don't know. We did however hang out with a Borg.

No one was excited as Nissa. Actually maybe Lillie was, too, as the two of them couldn't stop grinning and tearing up on the simulated ride.

Yes, this beautiful young lady used to be a Trekkie. She's been to conventions and even owns a couple of the suits. Here, she and her husband are enjoying a "James Tea Kirk" long island ice tea, complete with dry ice for effect. We came home tan and relaxed
Yay! Vegas! Good times! Exclamation marks!

- Mo

Denver trip

My turn to recap.... Besides the many wedding stylings as usual, I also spent last week in Denver. I went for my Aunt's wedding. My sister and I styled the bridal party's hair and then we just enjoyed our vacation.

It's been a long time since I've been able to just relax and for once I didn't plan a thing. I just went with the flow on whatever others wanted to do. As usual, Brie and I had a blast together. We always have at least one or more moments in our visits together that we end up in tears from laughter.
Here we are discovering that when we laugh to the point of tears, we both cry out of the right eye and the right eye only.
Besides visiting the yokles in the mountain, we also spent time with our family. My dad is the oldest of 10, so there are a lot of people to visit. We mostly spent time with my cousin Vanessa and her son Jalen because they were nice enough to let us stay with them. We also had time to watch movies and drink with the rest of her family, my cousin JoRae and my aunt and uncle. I never get to watch movies! By the way, 'The Bucket List' is not as bad as I expected.
And though I had a blast with my family, the best part of the trip was the food. My family owns a Mexican restaurant called Serranos. We ate there almost everyday. My grandmother's green chili is AMAZING. If you're ever in Denver, stop by. - Mo

Impressive, eh?

Just saw a commercial for some new film titled "Mongol". Something caught my eye, and I just had to pause and rewind. Thank you, DVR. Well, this is what just aired:

Either the PR folks at the studio don't have spellcheck, or they're calling out the critic at the Wall Street Journal. National commercials aren't cheap, as I understand it. Well done, dummies.

Confidential To A Certain Lurker Who Shall Remain Nameless

I have updated my resume. Just so you know.

- Corey

The Non-Chronological Recap (Part 1)

So much has been happening the past couple weeks since Mo blew all our money at the turtle races that we haven't been able to post new entries, but we'll try and catch things up to date. They won't be in chronological order, but you probably weren't there, so what do you care? The basic topics that we'll be covering in the next few posts include:

- Mo's trip to Denver

- the big Grand (Re-)Opening at the Laugh Out Loud Theater

- Corey's quick trip back to KC

- the impending Vegas trip

and maybe some other random odds and ends. We'll see. I'll try and make up for the time since the last post with long-windedness in these ones.

So I travelled to Kansas City this past weekend initially just to do a show. It became a weekend with 2 shows, and spending Father's Day with the family. The first show was Saturday afternoon. My friends Jay, Jim, Karen and I started a Jewish-themed improv group called Schticky Situation several years ago. We do a handful of shows each year, primarily in KC, but occasionally in Ohio for JCC's, Bar/Bat Mitzvah parties, Jewish singles groups, youth groups, Jewish arts festivals, etc. We do the typical short-form improv games, but we theme the suggestions to accentuate the Jewish content and cater to our particular audiences. While it's not groundbreaking work, the level of talent in the group is very high, and I feel that's what seperates us from other run-of-the-mill short form groups.

This show was for a Bar Mitzvah party and it was held at Screenland, a renovated movie theater in KC that was a very cool venue for a party. We performed in the theater in front of the screen, after the kids had played Rock Band on it. Pretty sweet. The crowd was a nice mix of adults and kids, and we rocked the joint. It was one of the best shows we've ever done, and we've done some good shows. The four of us have known each other for so long, it's nice having that familiarity to be able to jump into a show without having seen each other in months, and have it go so smoothly.

After that show, I went home, took a too-short nap, then grabbed some dinner at an old favorite that I've been craving for a while now. Ever since the Des Moines show a few weeks ago, in fact. Belly full, I jumped on I-435 and headed out to Bonner Springs to play a show at Roving Imp. The group there was so super nice and generous to let me, a perfect stranger, come in and play with them. I played the 9pm show which was a mix of short-form games in the first act, and a long-form piece after intermission. The cast was super cool, and I had a blast playing there with Nifer, Jessica, Julie, John (the owner), and Ryan. It was especially fun to play a long-form set because I haven't had a chance to stretch those muscles in a few months. My friends Trish, Pete and Tim came up to see the show, too. Here's a picture Trish snapped during the first half:

Me and Nifer are even more hilarious than this picture conveys. I don't know how Ryan kept it in. Overall, I thought we had a great show.

Ironically, I think the fact that I had never met these guys helped make the show go so well. We had no shared experience or practice together. We had to rely on hyper-awareness and intense listening, and really go back to improv basics, the only shared knowledge we had. Whatever, it worked because the audience left sore from laughing. Then we all went next door post-show to some diver bar and laughed at the rednecks getting drunk to the terrible cover band outside. All in all, a really fun day.

The next day was Father's Day, so I spent it at my father's house, hanging with my two brothers who are also fathers. We had a huge brunch with food my sisters-in-law made, I got to play with my nieces and nephew, visit my bubbe (grandmother, for the non-yiddish) and move a TV from my brother's house to my parents house. I think setting up the channels on the TV in the bedroom to automatically skip the channels he doesn't want was the best Father's Day present my dad could ask for.

- Corey

The Turtle and the Hair

The last couple weeks have been almost nonstop busy. Briette was in town to work on the Garnier hair tour. And though it was pretty hectic, we made sure to fit in time for turtle races at Big Joe's bar.

Everyone gets between one and seven tickets (we never quite figured out the system) every time you buy a beer. Then every fifteen minutes they pick six tickets and if your ticket is picked, you're assigned a turtle.

These little guys are a lot faster than you'd expect. Pretty hilarous too. And even though our ticket numbers never got called, we had fun with the side bets.

Go Lula Bell!

A happy day for me

Sorry for the gap between posts. It's been busy here, to say the least. The revolving door on the Hotel Madrittmaster has been spinning extra lately. Lots of friends and family staying with us, plus doing a ton of work at the LOL Theater getting it ready for the Grand Re-Opening party in June. Not to mention the various shows and rehearsals we're doing, it's been pretty hectic.

However, to continue the theme Mo started with the previous post, I had to post about my plans this evening. While Monique had her memory of Darryl Hall crushed, I will be reliving my youth by attending a show by the Kids In The Hall tonight! See the weird synchronicity? Hall...Hall? Whoa. I know.

The Kids In The Hall were my all-time favorite sketch comedy group. They were who inspired me to want to do sketch comedy in the first place. The idea that we were doing something kind of like KITH is what simmered in the back of my mind when four friends of mine and I started writing and performing our own material as the group Der Monkenpickle back in the 90's.

My friend Jeff called and said he was coming to town to see the show, and that he had an extra ticket. Before he could even finish the sentence, I told him I was in. I know that just like Darryl Hall, the Kids are older, probably a little slower, and probably also can't hit the same high notes, but I'm not worried. Jokes that work are jokes that work. I can't wait.

- Corey

A sad day for me

Today is a sad day for me. I'm watching a Daryl Hall concert (from 'Hall and Oates') on DirectTV. For those of you that don't know, I've long held the dream that the greatest concert I could see would be Lionel Richie and Hall and Oates. I think I was born in the wrong decade.

Anyways, my dreams have been sadly shattered. Hall sounds like shit. His voice is old, crackly and overall...just boo. Plus he's pretentions and plastic face-y. Worse off he's subjecting me to a new song he wrote. It's called "Cab Driver." You know, because he rode in a lot of cabs. It's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I am truly sad that the realization of my dream will never come true, because even if they come to concert, I cannot go.
I now have a higher appreciation for Oates, because I think he may have helped the duo sound better than we ever realized. Though, probably not, who are we kidding?

- Mo

Maquoketa

Saturday night's show was in this little town in Iowa for some printing company. I did the show with ComedySportz owner Jeff, along with Don and Fred. I've done a few shows with Don and he always delivers. Really smart, funny guy. Fred I had never met before, but he was great, too. Both Don and Fred are computer savvy, techie kinds of guys, so the conversation in the car ride to and from the show was a little nerd-centric. Lots of comic book references and tech lingo. I had little to add. No big deal, the show was a lot of fun. We performed at the Maquoketa Country Club, which was a little confusing. In the lounge area, there were golf items on the wall, the Golf Channel on TV and references to various course records and such. However, looking out the windows of the lounge and from the main dining room, where the show happened, you couldn't see any golf course. Jeff assured me there was one, but I'm pretty sure it's just a mini golf course in the basement.

Post show back in Rock Island was pretty low key. Just kicked back at the hotel and chilled, really. I was pretty tired from the late night in Des Moines combined with an afternoon jog around the District area in Rock Island. The drive back to Chicago was nice and uneventful. This week brings a lot of work out at the Laugh Out Loud space in Schaumburg and a visit from Briette, as she will be joining Mo on a cool promo gig doing hair for some Garnier gig. I'm sure she'll let you know all about that later.

- Corey

Des Moines

Hello from Iowa! I'm on the road this weekend, doing some shows for my friend Jeff A. at ComedySportz - Quad Cities. The first one was last night here in Des Moines. A really fun and kind of unusual gig. Along with my friends Patrick and Big G, we met up with this girl Michele who plays with ComedySportz - San Jose. Michelle is here in Des Moines for her cousin's wedding. We peformed at the rehearsal dinner. It was Michele's gift to the couple, who apparently are big fans, and go see her perform in California all the time. It was a really fun show for a very nice family. We themed everything around the couple and their family. Had a little fun with Father Murphy, the officient for the ceremony who was hilarious and awesome, and even though there were only about 50 people at the show, the laughter sounded like a group 10 times that size, because we killed.

After the show, we hung around and Michele and her husband bought us a couple beers and we swapped a few old ComedySportz stories from back in the day. Then the family and friends headed off to some dueling piano bar, and we headed back to our hotel because come on...a dueling piano bar? No thanks. Thankfully, we found a little Irish pub right by our hotel, so the boys and I hung out there for a little bit before coming back to the hotel to crash. We'll head back to Rock Island here in a few, and then another show tonight. I'll try and keep you posted, as I know you're waiting impatiently to hear about that one, too.

Oh, one sidenote: the worst part about this Des Moines (super quick) trip? Literally not more than 150 steps from our hotel is one of these. My favorite! But when we got into town we went straight to the gig so it was closed when we were done, and we're leaving this morning before it opens. Not cool, Des Moines. Not cool.

- Corey