| Dispatch #: | 23 |
| Location: | Reno, NV |
| Date: | 08.13.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| Last Friday we played our homecoming show, a benefit for the Holland Project, at the Studio on 4th. It was well attended. After the show, a gentleman approached me and pointed to a child a few feet away, hiding behind his chair. "My son thinks you were great, but he's too shy to tell you." It was so cute—he was too young to tell the difference between me and an actual celebrity. I said "Hi" to him, and he emerged long enough to tell me how funny he thought we were and then return to the safety of the chair. I apologized to the man for possibly teaching his son new things to do with chickens. I don't know exactly what the future holds for us at this point. We're waiting to hear back from the San Francisco Sketchfest people about how we did in their showcase a week or so back. If they liked us enough, we may get to perform there, possibly even opening for one of the groups we rip off. I'd like to do some smaller tours, but since Ryan is going to be doing a month of talking shows on the Eastcoast this fall and I live in a different city from everybody else and I don't like making money, it probably won't happen until the spring. Lastly, I want to send out a sincere thank you to everybody we've ever met. You guys rule. -Alex | |
| Dispatch #: | 22 |
| Location: | Camas, WA |
| Date: | 08.13.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| On Friday, we booked passage on the merchant vessel Kaleetan and returned to the main land. Lopez Island was a miracle for Nick, although I was not allowed outside for fear of mosquitoes. Whatever they were looking for in human blood, I had in abundance and no amount of Deet was going to keep them at bay. We headed south 160 miles to Olympia, WA where a pair of sketch comics from Evergreen taught us what we were missing (costumes, alcohol, and comic timing). We ate some garlic fries, worthy of the trip and and of themselves, and continued south to our home for this week in South Western Washington. We are paying for our lodging in ditch digging, a far cry from the relaxing life of semi-professional comedians. After reducing the earth's diameter by 18 inches in Ryan's dad's side yard, we are going to head up to the Multnomah Falls to celebrate Ryan's birthday. We will remain in Portland for a few more days, taking in the Rose City, admiring their bridges, and shopping for apartments that I might inhabit in the early fall. On Friday we will commence our toughest day of the whole tour before returning home triumphantly. We will drive 10 hours to San Francisco, perform our most important show of the summer, and then, leaving at about midnight, drive 4 hours back to Reno. At this point, we will sleep. As a fun side note, I mapped out what our total drive time would have been if we hadn't stopped and done and shows. If we hadn't stopped for anything but had just driven through each of the cities on our list, it would have taken us two days and 17 hours. -Alex | |
| Dispatch #: | 21 |
| Location: | Portland, OR |
| Date: | 08.10.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| We've been blowing though cities so my memories are rather blurry. One, however, stands out rather obtrusively: The San Juan islands. A friend of ours summers there and we were fortunate enough to crash with her and a house worth of Reno kids. I felt like we were in Reno, that is until I walked outside and saw the kingdom of God. There were trees, an ocean, and the most beautiful sight of all, blackberry bushes as far as the eye could see. I ate an embarrassing amount of blackberries. At the going market rate, I estimate around $60 dollars worth of delicious berries. I am a happy puppy. Before heading out, we laid on the beach and I finished Camus' The Rebel. Lopez Island is the death of productivity. If I spent more than a day there, I would lay out on the beach, read books in the shade, and never do anything else. Last night we played at a place called the Voyeur Cafe in Olympia. The show opened with Lo of Nobody Beats, who has a voice that would make angels feel like $50 prostitutes. Ryan and I were defeated by it. The food there was unreal. Root beer on tap, garlic everywhere, and the so much fresh basil...there was a lot of fresh basil is I guess what I'm driving at. This entry sucks by the way. Normally I try to have some sort of narrative structure, but I'm totally blowing it. In summation, tour consists of the following. We clear our plates. We play shows. We meet great people. We leave them the next day. We drink water. We read books. We stay up late (some of us). We get of early (some of us). We eat in the car when we're bored. We love what we do. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 20 |
| Location: | Lopez Island, WA |
| Date: | 08.07.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| First, I would like to completely retract my statement about the girls we met in Phoenix who were caused, by Ryan's good looks, to wreck their truck. Everything they did in that story took place without the use of alcohol. Believe it, mammals. Now, a couple quick points (not in the order I thought about the). [1] In opposition to everything I've been told to expect, the Canadians are much meanier about letting people in than letting people into their country than the Americans. Terrorists, take note. [2] Although the San Juan islands are beautiful, you shouldn't go outside. Between the car and the house you're staying in, you might get 14 bites on your legs. [3] The Wayward Cafe in Seattle, WA makes vegan food that is delicious. And I don't mean delicious for vegan food, but delicious for food food. If you can, you should go there. [4] In Canada, the candy bars are in different packaging (and way more expensive. [5] The cheapest way to board a ferry is to let the passengers out of the car, drive up to the ticket window and buy a car ticket for one, and then have the passengers walk around and get into the car before you drive onto the boat. Don't get mad, law enforcement personal, we learned this after we paid the $80 for all four of us. I'll try to talk everybody else into writing some things they've learned instead of making this a one voice blog. -AF | |
| Dispatch #: | 19 |
| Location: | Seattle, WA |
| Date: | 08.05.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| We're over 3,600 miles into tour now. It's our most hectic week (to be followed by our easiest week) and spirits are high (actual beds tonight!). Here's my opinion on Spokane: Everybody who was at the Blue Door Theatre last night was awesome. The rest of the town didn't seem to like us. Also, guys there don't wear shirts when the drive. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure they're nice people (except the handful that yelled "fags" out their windows in the first five minutes we were there). I just don't understand the "don't bring your delicious coffee beverages into our bar" rule. I did have really good Freedom Toast though, so that helped. The show went really well. We gave the audience a choice for which show we'd do (they chose "sex" over "violence," but it was a close call). I think we're going to do that again tonight (in an hour and a half). The pacific NW is going to be awesome. Talk to you soon. -Alex | |
| Dispatch #: | 18 |
| Location: | Spokane, WA (4:23am) |
| Date: | 08.05.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| I had a conversation tonight that both lifted my spirits and made me feel like I should rethink my life. Also, I did karaoke for the first time. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 17 |
| Location: | Walla Walla, WA |
| Date: | 08.04.07 |
| Author: | Ryan |
| We just did one of the most fun shows we've done in someones house. People crowded in and around and up the stairs and we did every damn sketch we could muster. Everyone was cool and polite and were into it. We are such a basement/house show group. We've performed in comedy clubs, bars and just about any other place you can think of but our thing definitely goes on better in intimate settings and in front of switched on people. Tonight was proof of that. We can do a bar and make it work and steal peoples attention away from their drinks but if you really want to see us shine, put us somewhere where we can see everyone eye to eye. Tonights show was full of tangents and improvs that were great and (as per usual) more funny than the skeleton sketches themselves. We are all very spontaneous and can play off of each other well which keeps it interesting for all of us. Tomorrow is Spokane and we're all excited to get there. | |
| Dispatch #: | 16 |
| Location: | Walla Walla, WA |
| Date: | 08.03.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| (update: added a second part so it's longer) Walla Walla is so small we're sleeping and performing in the same room. Also, have you noticed Nick's new catch phrase? Nick learned two lessons yesterday that might interest you. [1] He doesn't like cactus [2] "Cactus salad" contains cactus. -AF | |
| Dispatch #: | 15 |
| Location: | Leaving SLC |
| Date: | 08.02.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| 8:00AM- Walla Walla bound. Hell yeah. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 14 |
| Location: | Salt Lake City, UT |
| Date: | 08.01.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| Yesterday was a day off; it went as follows. 9:00 AM- Sleeping. 10:00AM- Sleeping. 11:00AM- Continued Sleep. 12:00PM- Slow stirring. 1:00PM- Full consciousness. 2:00PM- Internet Noodling. 3:00PM- Lunch at Olive Garden. 5:00PM- Frisbee Golf at Creekside Park Disc Golf course. 6:00PM- Alex receives southern hospitality from a golfing gentleman who provides him with a free disc golf driving disc for his hucking prowess. 7:00PM- Return to Sina's house for rest and playtime with Teddy, the toy poodle that bears a striking resemblance to a teddy bear. 8:00PM- Dinner at Megan's house. She and Alex made New Year's Tacos that were especially delicious. 9:00PM- Desert. Ice cream and blackberries, my favorite desert. 10:00PM- Planet Earth, the "Jungles" episode. We marvel as ants turn into sci-fi zombie aliens. 11:00PM- Goodbyes and closing chatters. 12:00AM- South Park, and Ping Pong. Note to self: Make perpetual touring a lifelong pursuit. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 13 |
| Location: | Salt Lake City, UT |
| Date: | 07.31.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| This town has been excellent to us. Our host, Sina, is easily one of the most generous, helpful, and talented people we've met so far. We're crashing in his basement and living like kings. This city is beautiful. There is a ski resort in our backyard. It blows my stupid mind. I'm not really a landscape guy, but this place is legit. We've done two shows at a place called Mo's Tavern. The audience outnumbered us both nights, and according to our math, that's a good show. Plus, we got bar tabs. Bar tabs! It totally makes me feel like a celebrity. With this ticket to paradise, we bought veggie burgers and garlic bread. We are squares. Tomorrow is a day off, and I fully intend to spend it reading. If I had to sum up tour using a series of phrases they would be as follows: wanton hydration, copious reading, vigorous comedy, and perpetual sweating. These are my tour assessments. During one of the copious reading sessions, we found ourselves at a used bookstore in Phoenix. It would probably be more impressive if I could remember the name of the place, but everything gets blurry on tour, so we're going to have to make it through this one together. Anyhow, we'd been in this bookstore--which by the way had a woman carrying a real, live owl in the backroom-- for about an hour when I started to get bored. Despite the music, action figure, and video game sections, my attention span had run its course. They had none of the Aaron Sorkin plays I was looking for, and thus was of no use to me. However, while in the theater section, I found the play Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead which had been recommended to me on several different occasions. It seemed appropriate that I should read something other than Nietzsche, so I bought it. Sitting down to read it while I waited for my friends, I started plowing through the rapid fire dialog at an alarming rate. The parts about the "Questions Game" and the quarter that keeps coming up heads were most fascinating. Having never read Hamlet, the bulk of the plot was lost on me. As time wore on, I found that I was substantially through the book. I dawned on me that I might be able to finish the book (albeit a play with about fifty words on each page) in the store I bought it in. A silly plan then occurred to me. What if I were to buy a book, read it in under an hour, and sell it back to the store. How much money would I lose? What a tremendous tour story this would make. Right? I guess. I finished it, and went to the counter to sell it back. A conversational transcript is included. Me: I would like to sell this book to you. I have a receipt. Clerk: You just bought this book. Me: Yeah, I read it. Clerk: Just now? Me: Just now. Clerk: Why do you want to sell it back? You can just return it. It hasn't even left the store. Me: I know, but I feel like I got my money's worth. Clerk: Dude, return the book. Go over there (points to a register) and return the book. I put $4.86 in my pocket and feel like I kick ass. Everyone else is relieved that they no longer have to sit around. Still, I have to imagine we're the squarest touring group of all times. We eat vegetables, drink water, and read. That's pretty much our lives. Though I have to admit, it has a certain charm to it that I'm quite taken with. Things to remember from SLC: 1. Our uniforms take on a new and strange irony here. 2. Bars here charge membership fees. Odd. 3. Sina and his righteously helpful demeanor. 4. Place where I saw the Simpsons movie for the first time. Kevin says I have a "notable" (read: ridiculous) laugh. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 12 |
| Location: | Las Vegas, NV |
| Date: | 07.28.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| Every where we've gone, we've left destruction in our wake. Hours after we left San Francisco, it was struck by an earthquake. Hours after we left Phoenix there was a terrible helicopter crash. We brought flash flooding to Northern Arizona where no rain usually falls. Last night, as we approached a Las Vegas mall, two young hoodlums were chased into traffic by a mall security guard. Their fate is unknown to us at this hour. And, most of all, Ryan causes car accidents. Not while he's driving, like Tim does, but by being distractingly handsome. After bagels yesterday morning, our hosts backed out of the parking lot and into another car. Presumably because they were looking at Ryan. Two nights before that, he caused a nice young woman to destroy her truck. We were sitting a diner getting a late dinner and were almost the only ones in the place. A woman, who looked somewhat managerly but wasn't in a uniform of any kind, walked across the restaurant and up to our booth. She didn't say anything until Ryan looked up. Then she stammered, "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else." That's fine. No problem. People make mistakes. But, as she eventually explained, she hadn't been sitting two tables down or something. She had been driving by and saw him in the window. Also the guy she thought he was lives in Oregon. Not Phoenix. That kind of logic (not to mention confidence) can only have come from alcohol and her friends, who were waiting in the truck, seemed to confirm that. As they left the parking lot, they rubbed the side of their vehicle off on a concrete pillar. An interesting side note is that, when we told this young woman that we were from Reno, she mentioned that her brother lives there. And (this isn't altogether surprising if you know Ryan) Ryan has indeed met her brother. So although he wasn't her friend from Oregon, he did have some connection to her and her (possibly) intoxicated friend. -AF | |
| Dispatch #: | 11 |
| Location: | Pheonix, AZ |
| Date: | 07.27.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| I only havea moment before we leave. We're staying with 2/5s of Mail Order Bride, and basically living in a pool. Leaving for the Grand Canon now, and bagels quickly beforehand. Jumped on a bill last night with the Light Rail Pirates, Mail Order Bride, Disorganized Chaos, and a great MC. Modified Arts is an amazing space. Phoenix is lucky to have it. It's 8AM, bringing my total sleep for the past three days to just under fifteen hours. Last night we stayed with Mack of Apollo 12, and he was the only member of his group to show up. Bad times. Mail Order Bride is the best thing we've seen so far; two great longform monoscenes about a dead kitty and guys trying to get laid, respectively. Ruling. Note: in AZ, it's a good idea to bring popcicles to your audience after an hour of comedy in hundred degree heat. MOB understands this principle. Anyhow, I'm keeping everybody. | |
| Dispatch #: | 10 |
| Location: | Bookman's Books, Pheonix, AZ |
| Date: | 07.26.07 |
| Author: | Ryan |
| The trip from LA to phoenix was a good one and other than running into a flash flood nothing much happened. We arrived in Phoenix to the Trunk Space and set up. We were to perform with two improv groups both of which impressed us. The first group up was called Mail Order Bride an all female improv group which is always cool to see in such a male dominated arena that is comedy. MOB did one single long form improv sketch that was cool and funny and I realized that I was less impressed with ASSCAT at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater than I was with MOB at the Trunk Space. Next up was Apollo Twelve which was impressive but in a different way. everyone in Apollo Twelve couldn't show up except for one. He went up with four other people and went for it and you could never tell that they were all working together for the first time. We did out thing and everyone seemed to be into it and we got a lot of compliments at the end. Mack put us up for the night and we all had a good time geeking out with him about movies and comedy and the like. Today is hot and beautiful in Phoenix. A mother and her grown child just passed me yelling each other about who's fault something was and I type this with one eye on them because I am certain that they are both insane. Tonight we do another show with MOB. And tomorrow we head to the Grand Canyon. It will be Tim and Alex's first time there so hopefully the next blog will be from the perspective of someone first seeing Americas big proud hole of freedom. Looking forward to it. | |
| Dispatch #: | 9 |
| Location: | Los Angeles, CA |
| Date: | 07.24.07 |
| Author: | Tim |
| My tour entries will be a little belated because I usually write in my little notebook. They will also be extremely short. It really is a little notebook. Anyhow, this is from Sunday, July 22nd, 8:32 PM. Enjoy. XXX I'm sitting on the curb of Third Prominade, just across the street from the Criterion Theater. It just started raining. It wasn't until the fourth drop hit me that I finally became convinced that someone wasn't spitting on me. | |
| Dispatch #: | 8 |
| Location: | An Attic in L.A. |
| Date: | 07.23.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| Day five of our LA adventure. This town is something else. Ryan and I went out for coffee and stumbled into quite another situation. As we sat down to write and read respectively, it came to our attention that we were going to have to keep it down... as they were shooting a game show in the middle of the coffee shop. Sure enough, ten minutes later there was video equipment being set up, and a pair of actors rehearsing their lines. The show was called Gender Challenge--where popular myths about African American culture were brought to light. Today's topic: Real or fake: weaves, extensions, wigs. Are they in or out? Both men and women of the African American community would proceed to comment on their feelings. LA is fucking weird. I have recently reached the pinnacle of my tour experience. It came a few days ago around dusk. My second story bedroom over looks beautiful palm trees and other gorgeous homes. I know this because outside my room is a balcony with a wicker chair. It is breezy and lavished by shade. I've spent the better part of the past week reading on this beautiful balcony. My feet up while Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a bowl full of cinnamon Frosted Mini-Wheats keep me company. Tour-cation is incredible. Last night we played a killer show at the Westside Eclectic. Our improv moments were tight, our acting on point, and our friend Dave and his lady friend came out to see us. We played Double Dutch out on the 3rd Street Promenade as a ruse for our fliering campaign. It worked splendidly. Too splendidly. Within minutes, fifty people surrounded us. We were a spectacle. Trouble is, we w ere a family friendly spectacle. As we handed out fliers, it became apparent that our audience was made up almost solely of parents. This presented a problem for our adult-oriented material. After handing out over a hundred fliers, we proudly returned to our venue. At show time, we had sold three tickets... including our generous host and his lady. That's some LA-ass shit. Bummer. What makes things more complicated is that we had to rent the theatre, a meager $150.00 a night. Three patrons, at five dollars a ticket, we made... I suck at math. Fortunately, I learned the following lesson: When fliering for a show in LA, promise audience members an audition, or at least some type of network hobnobbing in addition to a kick-ass live sketch comedy show. On the bright side, we might be able to make our money back hustling at bumper pool. There's one in the attic where Tim and Alex are staying and we've been staying. And, instead of going stir-crazy sitting around all day, we're training for the bumper pool Olympics (or equivalent). No shit, we're all getting good. Look out LA. Plus, this is the best I've ever eaten on tour. Between the kindness of Missy and her husband, the culinary expertise of Dave (our host), Alex's ability to fry anything with extra virgin olive oil, and my willingness to put miscellaneous ingredients together, there's no stopping us. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 7 |
| Location: | Santa Monica, CA |
| Date: | 07.22.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| Some quick thoughts: [1] Guess who is the newest member of Ralph's Club? Three years of junk mail to save $.40 on black beans. [2] L.A. is everything we'd ever made fun of it for and more. This is fun. In short spurts. [3] I'm sleeping in the bed of the guy who wrote this book. (He is not). [4] ASSSCAT: Improv (the Upright Citizen's Brigade's improv show) is going to be on Bravo this fall. This is good news for TV. [5] If you've met us, you've met four people who have been thrown off of the 3rd St. promonade for jumping rope without a license. [6] I saw my first cockroach ever yesterday and then promptly had a dream where my house was infested. Each room I walked into had a larger roach than the previous one. The 5th room had one that was 18 inches long. I hit it with my show and it looked up at me, rubbing it's head, and pissed. I woke up. Now I am scared of bugs. [7] Our mansion is owned by a couple who renovates old mansions. In the yard there are 8 toilets, each over 100 years old. There is a laundromat in the basement, a gaggle of bicycles in the garage, and a 6 foot by six foot wooden frame (from which a painting has been ripped out) hanging in the hallway. There is a workshop dedicated to repairing lamps, a key duplicating machine, and a full Starbucks on the main floor. Although a bit dusty, it doesn't appear to be haunted. Maybe next time. -AF | |
| Dispatch #: | 6 |
| Location: | A Mansion In West Adams |
| Date: | 07.21.07 |
| Author: | Ryan |
| Last night was a blast that was bound to be a disaster. We were scheduled to do the late show at the very cool Empty Stage Theater. The main person in the troupe that we were going to perform with got his first audition call that evening and he understandably had to bail. That part is cool and I hope it went well for him but that did leave us in a position to show up to the theater and go, "Hi were not from here, no one knows about us and we're supposed to go on in fifteen minutes." So last night we performed a free show in front of the theater owner, stage manager and a couple people who performed earlier that evening. Everyone had a great time and they were good to us. It is a theater that is definitely geared toward people who already know about comedy, improv and the business. There is a cool eye to eye thing that exists between audience and performer where each has an amount of stage time under their belt with theaters like that. Theaters and venues that have 25 through fifty seats hold a special place in my heart. Its the same vibe you get going to a punk show in a house or basement. There are a slew of theaters in the world that will never be on the beaten path of normal people who have day jobs and are looking for something to do on a Saturday night. Their main income comes from grants and tax write offs rather than ticket sales. What they do is important because they provide a place for people in the know to perform in front of people in the know. (Think of Jazz Musicians at the Five Spot in New York.)This leaves the performer with a very supportive audience that won't buy any pretense that a crowd of normal people would. Places like The Empty Stage do not have much in the way of hype which is basically due to the fact that no one will ever make a ton of money on a theater with 50 seats. So the seats get filled with people who already know the business. It was a good time and we were all glad to meet each other. Earlier that afternoon we were walking on a small sidewalk between a street and a large concrete wall that had years of different kinds of vines growing it. Up ahead of us were a couple of guys standing on their truck picking some grapes that were growing on one of the vines. As we passed I saw that they were smiling as children smile when they get into the cookie jar. They were picking grapes. We waved and it was cool. a block later we heard over a loud speaker "HEY! YOU GUYS KNOCK THAT OFF!" I look up and see an LAPD motor cycle. I got ready for an encounter with the LAPD. I will be beaten and arrested and I was ready for it. Un/fortunately he was talking to the guys on the truck and we went on our way to eat breakfast. I know you're waiting for your chance LAPD. But this day... this day is for comedy. | |
| Dispatch #: | 5 |
| Location: | Los Angeles, CA |
| Date: | 07.19.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| TV You Can Heckle stays in an LA Mansion: part one. After leaving our good friends Tina and C-Tina (Christina) with a bag full of non-poisoned snack bars, we headed off to LA. I am drinking lots of water, staying hydrated, and in good spirits. However, about forty-five minutes outside of LA, my bladder stages a coup against me and the rest of Team Reno. Fortunately, we hit a traffic jam that could only be cooked up in LA. We're five miles from our destination, but traveling 3MPH. You do the math. I start squirming in my seat trying to coax my bladder into compliance. Four miles to destination. Things are getting worse. Three miles. It's getting unbearable now. Two miles. I'm contemplating urinating into my Nalgene bottle and scrubbing it later on with steel wool. 1.9 miles. I've had it. I insist that Ryan pull over, and in the middle of LA rush hour traffice begin to relieve myself on the side of the highway. It turns out that I have fans I didn't know about. As I am immersed in my glorious urination, cars honk and hoot. People shout things and heckle. But, I remain the bright, calm, blue, Zen center of the universe, for I have never felt such a tremendous weight lifted from my shoulders. It lasts for what seems like an hour. We arrive at a woman named Missy's house to the most hospitable conditions imaginable. No one is as happy as I am. Tonight we're at an open-mic at the Westside Ecclectic. It's small and the host, Ed Galvez, decided to make the show "Poke Fun of Ed Galvez" themed-- of which we were happy to oblige. The room was friendly, but the man attraction was a seventeen year old girl who was going on stage for the first time. She's got courage I haven't even imagined yet. Plus, I think she was pretty funny. On an unrelated side note, all the white, square comics in California have a thing for black women. Just something we noticed. We performed "Hall Monitor Boot Camp" which went over surprisingly well. It made us feel much more enthusiastic about our show there on Sunday. Lost trying to find the car. Turns out there are several identical parking structures that are trying to hide your car. Beware. Back to the mansion. Did I mention we're staying in a mansion? The people who live there are out of town and we're invited to stay for as long as we'd like. One of the inhabitants will arrive in the morning. Place is both huge, and creepy. We're pretty sure it's the mansion from Clue. Every time I turn around I'm expecting to get offed in the study with the candlestick. My room is nice. I sleep poorly, dreaming of Alex building a pipe bomb at school and me getting brought to justice for being a conspirator. Morning. David arrives. Amazing human being. Makes us pancakes (awesome!). Afterwards we bike (that's right, bike) to Amoeba Records. Two things are important here. First, I haven't ridden a bike in ten years. Second, there are about a million cars on the road (give or take 950,000). No helmet. Sandals. Terrified. At one point we cross a busy intersection and I get marooned on the other side. Ryan and David ride out into traffic, halt cars, and rescue me. None of us died. I am pumped. We bought an embarrassing amount of records. David makes us a fantastic lunch and we're ready to press on. We're all really gross from sweating. Really gross. Tour gross. Back in the car. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 4 |
| Location: | South San Francisco, CA |
| Date: | 07.18.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| Day 2 of TV You Can Heckle versus the road. GPS system blows our mind about technology. Open-mic comedy at Annie's Social Club. Eighteen people on the list. Nineteen people in the room. The lone man not performing is clad in all black, shaved head, circa forty, wearing a ninja-style mask, and glasses from the 20s. With him he carries two medium size cardboard boxes filled with Luna Bars. For those who are not part of the energy bar revolution, Luna bars are the female counterparts to Cliff bars--eaten by protein dudes everywhere. What's curious is that this man quietly sits through the first few comics, then slowly starts to open his boxes. Keeping his gaze fixed on the stage, he begins to dispense the nutrition bars onto and around the surrounding tables. He takes handfuls and places them on the table of women behind him. When the comedians start to comment on his mysterious behavior, he launches into ad copy announcing the fabulous health benefits of his products. Minutes go by and I start to realize that I'm on tour and planning to be hungry tomorrow morning. A handful of snack bars is just what the doctor ordered. I reach into the man's box of neatly organized snack foods and pull out a Blueberry Yogurt thing. Unwrapping the treat, I begin to feast upon my good fortune. Minutes pass. Despite raising my estrogen levels, I find the snack to be quite agreeable. As few of the patrons are taking advantage of this generous offer, it dawns on me to procure the remaining units for later consumption. As I reach for a handful, Tim looks at me and says, "Are you really going to eat that." I am dumb. It occurs to me in a much belated revelation that I am breaking the cardinal rule of being a kid: Don't accept candy from strangers. I further examine the gentleman distributing the deserts and I realize that he is most certainly not the type of person I would employ to sell women's nutritional supplement bars. He is more like the guy you'd hire to kill someone in an alleyway. It is this realization that causes a distinct churning in my stomach. It is both anxiety and the fear of being poisoned. I start to feel dizzy. At this point, I'm fairly sure the snacks have been drugged, I am succumbing to the effects of one or more knockout drugs and am about to enter a world of pain. I rush to the bathroom and quickly bulemicize (definition: the verb form of bulimia) myself. My index finger reaches down my throat to beckon the alien food particles to evacuate their current position in favor of a bar toilet. I vomit. I vomit voluntarily and completely. Upon my return to the tiny room where the open-mic is taking place, I find the gentleman still quietly attending. Fearing I will be too incapacitated to accurately describe the man to police sketch artists when news gets out that dozens died in a mass snack-food poisoning, I snap a picture of the man with my phone camera. Perhaps police can track him down when I'm dead. One of the other comics kindly pointed out that I was eating food from a homeless man. Clearly I have been living a rather sheltered life. All I could think about was, "Hey, free tour food. Sweet." Five hours after poisoning: dizzy, fatigued, headache, nausea, paranoia. Will report on status change. _Nick Alex: In an effort to un-sully this man's good name, I would like to add my side of this story. Everybody in the room ate some granola bars from a guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt who owned a healthfood store down the street. Nobody felt sick except Nick and that's because voluntarily throwing up hurts your body. -AF | |
| Dispatch #: | 3 |
| Location: | South San Francisco, CA |
| Date: | 07.17.07 |
| Author: | Nick |
| The first day of tour is in the bag. After marveling the fact that we fit 800lbs of male, nearly 500 'zines, clothes, props, and sleeping bags into Ryan's luxurious Prius, we were almost ready to leave. Trouble is, our tour calendar has us In B.C. in early August. I, the fantastically untraveled devil I am, have a passport that expired in 1997. While the guys were showing off their passports like the American Psycho "Card Game," I sat on the sidelines like Rudolph the "Can't Get Across the Border" Reindeer. As I have seen From Dusk Till Dawn a dozen times, I know how to smuggle myself across a border. I just need a bathroom, and Juilet Lewis. And we're off... I, in typical fashion, fell asleep in the car about fifteen minutes in. I awoke to the sound of an officer tapping on the passenger-side window. Apparently, we'd been speeding. The officer was disturbingly affable. He asked if Ryan played basketball, smelled like Old Spice, and was a generally nice guy. Then he cited us. Drag. Our newly installed GPS system (courtesy of my father [thanks Dad]) brought us into the San Fransisco downtown right on schedule. We peaked our heads into the venue and found it to be a rather agreeable, hip joint called Club Deluxe. They host a weekly open-mic comedy night which we would soon be a part of. Tonight's theme: Driest Comic Standing. A monotone call to arms of unenthusiastic comradery. Many of the comics were a blast. I was pretty blown away by the amateur talent. When we took the stage, I found myself in a rare state of calm. I usually adopt a policy of colossally freaking out before show time, but today my hands were steady, my stomach un-knotted, and my heart keeping a labored, steady beat. There is some dissension within the group as to how we were received last night, I will defer to me... who is writing the tour entry. On a scale from being lynched to being heralded as geniuses, I would say that it was closer to the former. But in the words of President Bill Pullman, "I don't give a fuck." Luckily, we're all in good spirits. Tina and her roommate, C-Tina, are as hospitable as ever, we've got gas in the car, and Carolyn's delicious muffins in our stomachs. TV You Can Heckle versus The Road round 1 goes to the road. We're pressing the select button and coach is patting our shoulders between rounds. Let's get it on. _Nick | |
| Dispatch #: | 2 |
| Location: | Reno, NV |
| Date: | 07.14.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| Friday the 13th. 11:30 p.m. Our Tour Kickoff show at Bruka Theatre in Reno, NV. There's no other way to describe it; it was awesome. We started rehearsing at 11 a.m. yesterday, to fine-tune some last minute changes we had made to our show. By the evening we were exhausted. After a dinner break, I returned to the house to find Nick and Ryan asleep in the practice room (they had been watching the West Wing which, I'm sorry to say, has the same effect on me). At 10:30 we headed over to Bruka to start the process of being nervous and freaking out. There were already a handful of people there to see us, even though the doors didn't open until 11. The venue seats about 40 people, but at 11:15, the manager asked us if we minded having people sit on the floor around the stage. Since we only care about money, we told them to pack as many people as they possibly can into the room. "Okay," she said, "but I'm absolutely stopping at 70." At 11:25 we get a text-message from a friend who says he's one of a group of about 10 being turned away at the door. I know it's unfortunate for the people who got turned away, but for our morale, it was excellent. Once we came out, the energy in the room was amazing. Everybody was smiling and cheering, looking quite excited to see what we were going to do. In return, we "brought it." The show went without a hitch. We did the full hour, everything we have, with our two main story lines interwoven (almost) seamlessly. Not one scene seemed to go unappreciated. When you rehearse a show like this for so long, it's easy to forget just how funny you are. Thanks to everybody who showed up for reminding us. My parents, who I expected to be put off my the crude nature of the show, loved every bit of it. When I found them afterwards, my dad was explaining why it's funny that Nick's cock has grown an inch and a half. I couldn't imagine a more perfect send-off. We briefly considered retiring last night, for knowledge that the rest of the tour won't have a crowd so dead-set on loving us. We're leaving town on Monday to experience to find out what the rest of the unfeeling world thinks of us. We've got two more days to make final preparations before the tour commences, but we're all in such good spirits, I can't imagine ever having a bad day again. -AF | |
| Dispatch #: | 1 |
| Location: | Reno, NV |
| Date: | 06.30.07 |
| Author: | Alex |
| This is our new Tourblog. We'll be posting dispatches most days on tour. You'll love it. -AF Tourblog! | |