Processed Cheese Food

Excused absence makes the heart grow fonder

2005-07-22T08:27:00.000-04:00

I just want to give y’all a heads-up: I’m going to be spending the next week in the wilds of mid-state Maine. This means that my means (hey homonym!) of long-distance communication will be reduced to shouting and tying succinct notes to chipmunks.

So I probably won’t be updating.

Before you start wallowing in a sense of abandonment, remember that, unlike some people, I’m actually letting you know that I’m going and I’m making vague promises of returning.

Actually I’m coming back early on Friday for my Shakespeare improv groups first gig. If you can't make the show, you can still buy the t-shirt : http://www.cafepress.com/3bardmonty

Last night was another kick-ass music rehearsal – I may actually have a crush on a cello. The cellist is very nice too, but the cello itself sounds utterly awesome. And it’s fun to have someone to trade melodies with while everyone else is singing…
On the improv side, Shakespeare Blues is also getting really good. We take a Bard play from the audience and improv a 12-bar blues song based on it. Last night we used Middsummers; sample verse:

Well my name’s Helena ,
I’ve got a rep for being nice and meek.
But I’m so confused now,
I think it’s time for me to speak.
‘Cause I’ve got two guys chasin’ me,
Which is unusual, ‘cause they’re Greek.

It’s a lot funnier when it’s live…

Thank you Chuckles the Clown

2005-07-15T10:32:00.000-04:00

Things are coming along nicely with the 3 Bard Monty Show (the Shakespeare project we’ve been busting our collective humps on).

We finally secured a venue for August and it looks like we’ll get two shows in there instead of one.

I went to my first music rehearsal last night and it’s going to sound wonderful. Some really nice voices and the girl I’m fighting with rapier and dagger in one scene and verbally abusing in another also plays a kick-ass cello. She and I are playing under the song Bonny Swans (she on cello, me on mandolin) and now that I’ve actually learned the tune, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to play.

And Wednesday night the perfect tag line for the Show came to me (it’s a lift from the Mary Tyler Moore Show):

3 Bard Monty
"A little song, a little dance, a little Shakespeare in your pants"

An Open Letter to Johnny Law

2005-07-13T14:47:00.000-04:00

Dear Cop-

If you are going to actually give me a ticket for going through a light that was pretty much yellow, please try to be more of a dick about it.

If you’re all chill about it and say things like “sorry I had to pull you over” and agree with me when I say “it was a pretty close call”, I’m expecting you to either let me off with a warning or, if you feel you must write a ticket, I’m thinking it’ll be less than $50.

$114.

And the light was, at best, a darkish amber.

If you’re going to ticket me like that, then act like it.

See ya in court,
Love,
Kit

What is in a name?

2005-07-11T22:08:00.000-04:00

I am basically an honest person, especially when you consider that I do a lot of acting and improv...

But I think this innate honesty has prevented me from a great opportunity for some cheap, quick fun. I realized this tonight as I was leaving my local Starbucks.

They asked my name so they could write it in grease pencil on the cup that would soon contain my iced coffee. I gave the barista my name, my real one. As I left I realized I could have given her any name and I still would have gotten the correct beverage. There was really no practical need for me to be honest.

So next time I'm going to have fun with it:
Barista: Name?
Me (Kit): Reynaldo

or

Barista: Name?
Me (Still Kit, mind you): Hrothgar

Now it may go like this, but it still works:
Barista: Name?
Me: Hrothgar
Barista: Is that really your name?
Me: It is as far as the Witness Protection Program is concerned.

See, it's fun and no one gets hurt.

So I'm encouraging all of you out there, in situations where the name doesn't really matter, lie creatively. Make reservations under the name Hitler, place pick up orders for Ivan The Fantastic, tell the census guy that you really are Whoopie Goldberg, but not the famous one...

The truth may set you free, but this makes the world just a little more entertaining.

2005-07-10T10:45:00.000-04:00

I'd just like to congratulate one Jenn Marsala for her brilliant interview. Excellent choices in both questions and interviewee...

I'd also like to publicly express my regret for any gender mix-ups with a certain t-shirt. I blame society.

My brain should not be allowed to live by itself...

2005-07-10T10:41:00.000-04:00

Today, while totally minding my own business (I was doing laundry actually) this thought came unbidden to me:

There should be a calamari dish called "Squid Pro Quo". I'm not sure what it would be, but if someone wants to get to work on the recipe, I'd be appreciative...

"Friday" - such a beautiful word...

2005-07-08T10:59:00.000-04:00

I know I haven’t posted in a bit – mea culpa…and carpe deim too.
I’ve been try to keep the rehearsals, actors, directors and venues for this Shakespeare thing organized.
I got at call from the guy who was supposed to be hosting the event on Thursday (while I was home for lunch no less – that’s me time, dammit!). Apparently the Aug 27th date we’d be working around is no good…this has a nasty ripple effect with my actors, especially the ones who are going to NYU and need to be back at school in Sept.
I got off the phone and wondered just how strict they are about not drinking on the job…
But I’ve got good people working on getting us another venue (this one is indoors, so we loose the cool outdoor Shakespeare effect, but don’t need to worry about a rain date) and this may actually help us. If we get the space for the 27th, we can do a second show in the Fall at the original venue – two shows means more stage time for my dedicated actors (except the NYU girls), more $$ for the Hole in The Wall (the whole thing is a fundraiser) and more rehearsal time for the show.
See when life throws you lemons, you make lemonade. When life throws you kiwi’s, you better hope it’s got the fruit and not the flightless bird, ‘cause the "flightless" part becomes very obvious when they’re thrown.
I’m also working on the next installment of "Cap’n Marsala"…it’s taking a while, not due to lack of inspiration, just a lack of time…
Now please return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Just sit right back, an' you'll hear a tale...

2005-07-01T10:56:00.000-04:00

I have no idea where I'm going with this, but it's a start...

"Damn you, Mayo!!!" Captain Marsala shouted, her words lost in the wind and spray. The last broadside by Mayo’s ship, the Phlegmatic, had carried away the rudder and most of the steering tackle of the Faux Pas making the ship impossible to maneuver.
The Phlegmatic was well past Marsala’s ship now, beginning to make the turn that would bring back to either board the Faux Pas or send her to the bottom.
Marsala cupped her hands to her mouth, "Prepare to repel boarders!" Startled by the shout, Karl, the bright red cardinal perched on her shoulder gave her a quick peck to the back of the head. "I’ve got to get a damned parrot" Jenn muttered to herself.
Below on the main deck, Nemo, the master-of-arms for the ship was distributing pistols, cutlasses and pikes to the crew. Two small cabin boys were spreading sand from two buckets half their size across the deck. The sand would absorb blood and keep her men from slipping as they fought Mayo’s crew.
Marsala turned to Flint, "Run up the Jolly Roger fore and aft – let Mayo know that if he tries to board us, I won’t leave a body alive on his tub!" Her first mate waved to a seaman to pull the black and red flags from the signal chest. A minute later two large, red, grinning skulls waved from the fore and aft masts.
There would be no quarter.
Crippled, the Faux Pas drifted in the current off of the island waiting for the Phlegmatic to make her turn and move in. After all the smoke, thunder, yelling and screaming of the running battle between the ships, the silence that fell over the waiting pirates was almost peaceful; like the peace of the grave.
Marsala looked out at her rival’s ship. Mayo had struck some sail as he slowed to turn, so he must be planning on coming in close. He meant to board her ship and that meant he knew she had the map and the key with her. She also knew that if he captured her ship, he wouldn’t let her die easily; not after Morocco.
For the first time since she had taken up pirating, Jenn Marsala was genuinely afraid.

More than a Pun, a Prompt...

2005-06-28T14:28:00.000-04:00

I hereby defy one Jenn Marsala to write a short story or one-act or low-budget screen-play entitled: Pirate Booty Call.
I feel that she owes it to the world.

Something to not think about...

2005-06-27T22:24:00.000-04:00

A while ago, someone asked me what I would do if I woke up one day and wasn't funny anymore.

I've avoided really thinking about that.

I intend to continue to do so.

If you can't take the heat...

2005-06-25T14:20:00.000-04:00

Hmm, it's 98 degrees and humid out...what should I do with my afternoon?

I know - a fight rehearsal outside! I think it's a very good idea to be swinging rapiers and daggers at people while you're also fighting a heat stroke.

Actually we did manage to find some shade and the fight does look really good. I'm just exhausted, sweaty, famished and I'm sure I smell like some of the lower-rent sections of Calcutta during a garbage strike...

What should I do with the rest of my afternoon? Shower - brief period of unconsciousness on the couch, maybe have some Chinese food delivered.

Good Karma Comes in Medium and Small...

2005-06-25T08:36:00.000-04:00

Someone, who shall remain nameless (mostly due to a protective court order), should be receiving a buccaneerian themed t-shirt within the next week or so...

I think this will make the universe in general a better place.

People are people...

2005-06-24T08:20:00.000-04:00

On a less whiney note than my previous post, I had a nice moment on my drive to rehearsal.
At a light (this is before the accident) a car pulled up next to me. A kind of haggard looking middle-aged guy said "I like your stickers".
I’ve got a couple of bumper stickers on my car that make clear my feelings about President Evil and the Hideous Waste of Life in Iraq.
This guy didn’t look like the type who would normally share my views; but as he pulled away, I noticed he had a VFW decal and Veteran license plates.
This guy was too young to have been in any war except Gulf I or the current mistake, and it was nice to know that he didn’t take my views as a condemnation of him as a veteran and even nicer to know that he actually shared them.
The whole thing made me feel much better about people in general.

With days like this, who needs evenings...

2005-06-24T08:10:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the kind of day where you get a phone call as you’re trying to get out the door on your way to a rehearsal after being home for a whole 2 hours after work. The phone call was someone dropping the Shakespeare show I’m putting together, someone who was directing two scenes and acting in two others. So instead of getting out the door, I made a quick phone call to my producer suggesting replacements and hoping she could scope those out that night and a music rehearsal I was missing…
Then the ATM didn’t work on my way to Starbucks. I hate using plastic to pay for coffee – it seems so desperate. But I guess I was pretty desperate by the time I got to Starbucks – I walked in and told the guy "I need two things – one with coffee and one with sugar" He said "Iced coffee?" "Great!" "Cookie?" "Perfect". I’m sure I seemed totally manic, but I had all these things running through my head – actors, directors, rehearsal spaces and I was running late for dress rehearsal for a totally different show.
Then there was an accident on Route 3. For those of you not familiar with the road (and I think my readership of 1 probably isn’t) Route 3 is a two-lane road that winds through suburban Connecticut. An accident on Route 3 isn’t the kind of thing you can go around – there just isn’t room.
So I sat in my car and was very thankful for my iPod. I think I need to make a playlist called "Don’t Have A Stroke Tunes".
The good part is the that the rehearsal went well – I played scary, scary and crazy, crazy. Then I went out afterward, had a beer and felt much better.

Uneasy lieth the head that wears the Monkey crown...

2005-06-23T07:47:00.000-04:00

I’m blogging from work, and thereby ‘stickin’ it to the Man’ – I’m such a rebel…
You know what’s way more fun than work? Sitting outside on a beautiful day at a really good sushi place, having lunch while working on a Shakespeare show. That was my Monday afternoon.
There I was picking at a tuna roll with chopsticks in one hand, a notebook in the other and my battered Complete Works opened on the table, stuck full of bookmarks. I was picking out scenes and trying to pick directors and actors – balancing who’d be good in which role and still trying to make sure that all 15 of my cast members got some stage time…
I think I’ve come up with a good show, as long as everyone is cool with my vision of Richard III as a conjoined twin.
All in all, it was a lot more fun than being at work. Someone needs to pay me to do that, preferably a lot of money.

Requisite Post of Self-Examination...

2005-06-16T22:10:00.000-04:00

Hi, I'm posting out of fear.

A vague, irrational fear that, though I am several miles safely inland, a certain blogger who shall remain namelss (though Jenn's last name is also the name of a wine used in a fairly well-known chicken dish. Begins with an "M" and rhymes with "Parsala") will actually manage to send pirates after me for not posting.

Again I think the logistics, geography and history make this unlikely; but why tempt Fate?

So here is the life-saving, pirate-warding post.

So, Jenn _arsala, call off your minions. You win, damn you, you win.

At least this round.

I learned it from watching Ghandi!!

2005-06-13T12:29:00.000-04:00

OK, until a certain J.Marsala posts again, I've decided to, in protest, take to my bed and refuse everything except food and drink.

You have been warned.

If it were done, when 'tis done, the 'twere well it were done quickly

2005-06-09T22:04:00.000-04:00

OK, I've actually started the Shakespeare Improv Project - invites have gone out to actors/singers/musicians I want to recruit; a first rehearsal date and place is set and we've got a couple of gigs close to lined up.

I sure hope this works.

I keep oscillating between excitement and abject terror. I've decided that's a good sign.

And I liked using "oscillating".

This is funnier if you actually know them...

2005-06-09T22:01:00.000-04:00

but it might be more surreal if you don't...

OK, so the Clapsaddles are having a tag sale this weekend.

Here's a brief list of items I'm hoping to find:
* some knickknacks from Denise's home planet, mostly lizard hummels
* several books (in Sleestak) on "How to Cook Humans"
* a regenerative sleeping pod
* scale curlers
* bronzed pieces of Denise's baby shell
* the collectors edition of the miniseries "V" on DVD
* a couple of sets of false eyelids
* a jar or two of Denise's home-pickled rodents
* the dried husks of two former husbands

Making fun helps take away the fear...

Holy lucrative crap

2005-06-02T12:37:00.000-04:00

Ok, I was always taught that it was bad form to discuss money, and I sure as heck don't want to jinx anything...

but (you saw that coming didn't ya?)

According to my tech/music director, he's lined us up a gig next February at East Conn. State U. for $3,000. That's 3 G's, 3k, three large, a quarter-of-a-dozen grand.

For this ridiculous sum all they want is for us to teach a workshop and then do a show in the evening.

Oh gods of improv and other dubious talents: please let this one come through. A lot can happen 'tween now and February, but this sounds like it would be a really fun gig as well as make us all richer than Canadians!

Again, I hope going on about this isn't tacky - I'm just a little stunned...

Mom can have that elective surgery now...

OK, now I'm going to be late getting back from lunch.

An open letter to my co-workers

2005-06-01T12:50:00.000-04:00

When it comes to vocabulary - size does matter...

More than a wine that you can cook chicken in...

2005-06-01T06:20:00.000-04:00

Jenn is my new best friend and trans-continental lender of undergarments. She is clearly smart and funny and demanding and just slightly un-nerving. She also the first person I've never met who's life I have threatened.

Happily some quick negotiating has removed the need for me to have her whacked.

I'd write more glowing adorations of Jenn (or JM as the guys in the local chapter of Kiwanis call her), but I'm actually going to be late for work...

I'll pimp her blog shortly, although anyone who reads this probably already reads hers...

God, I love...elipses...

Things I learned yesterday...

2005-05-29T14:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday involved, along with a great deal of food and drink, about 5 or 6 hours of volleyball. I learned that
a) if you play volleyball for several hours you will feel it the next day and
b) you can play volleyball in a kilt without particularly shocking anyone (of course this would have been a hard group to shock - you know how actors are...).

We stopped playing after it got dark because most of my friends are wusses. "C'mon! So it's dark, that just means your other senses get sharper! Tell me you can't hear that serve... You know where the damned net is - it's where it's been all day! The ball is white, it will totally pick up the moonlight, just feel where it is and...ow!!!!!"

I love volleyball.

I'm going to go lie on the couch now.

One bad hair day for us is like seven for them...

2005-05-28T11:45:00.000-04:00

My dog got a bad hair cut.

Usually the good folks at Petco do a nice job and she comes out looking kind of sporty.
Yesterday she got whatever the canine equivalent of a bowl cut is.
I tried not show anything on my face when I picked her up, but the cut makes her look a little chunky and her nose look big. A shaggy look really works for her - that's gone now, replaced by very straight cuts and some very unblended layers.

I think she knew she wasn't looking her best, she seemed a little down on the ride home. I got her something furry that squeaked (a toy, not a mammal) and she got busy killing and disecting that, which I think made her feel a little better.

She is a cute dog (photos as soon as I figure out how to do it) and I know it'll grow back, I just feel bad for her right now. When you are entirely covered in hair, it matters how it looks.

Maybe some gel or mousse could help while it grows out.

Oh, and Petco? Thanks for putting the bandana on her, I know you were trying to help, but frankly it didn't pull focus, just called attention.

Is this thing on?

2005-05-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

Hi there!

Against both my better judgement and my lawyer's advice, I'm starting this blog.

I can't promise you good times, I can't promise you money or fun, I can't even promise you good spelling.

What I can promise you is at least %50 of the content in this blog will be true and I will only used recycled, environmentally friendly material.

So stay tuned... we'll be back after several hours of real life!