The post that ate Chicago!!!!!
Well, I'm back from Chicago and I had a mother-fucking great time. That town is a blast and if I can say that about a place that I visited in the dead of winter you know it must be true.
For those of you who do not know, Dallas has two airports. The big mega-airport known as Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport(DFW) and the smaller much over-shadowed airport (which I've never flown out of before) Dallas Love Field. My flight was scheduled to leave at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning so I show up at DFW at 4:45 and plop my bags down at curbside check in only to have the attendant take a look at my itinerary and tell me "my man, my man, you are at the wrong airport". Jessica said a look a utter horror came across my face. I ran up to the ticket counter to see if I could catch a different flight to make my connection in Houston. The girl behind the ticket counter says "No problem sir. We can change your flight and it will only cost you four fifty." I'm still in freak out mode so I go, "FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS?!?" and see replies, "No, four dollars and fifty cents, sir". I'd like to give a big hearty thank you to Continental Airlines for helping correct my moronic mistake. If only I could carry Continental Airlines around in my pockets to correct every other moronic mistake.
"Oh God, I ran a stop sign and smashed into a hobo with my car!" "No, problem sir, we can make that hobo carcass disappear for only $4.50" "Yippee! Thank you Continental Airlines. So, I made it to Chicago and everyone was happy.
Chicago was great. Wonderful food. Nice people. Nifty shops. But, this weekend was all about Sketchfest, Sketchfest, Sketchfest. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, Chicago Sketchfest is the nations largest comedy sketch fest. The festival, which is in its 4th year is the brain child of Brian Posen, who is a very active member of the Chicago sketch/improve community. This year they had 83 groups participating over a period of two weeks. I became aware of Sketchfest last year but was not able to make it. This year though I had a little extra incentive to attend because Frank Ford, (who is my current teacher at the Four Day Weekend training center) and Shane Estep would be performing a portion of
their latest revue Feetprints (Don't Fail Me Now). at the festival.
Frank and Shane did an amazing job. Their show was polished and funny as well. It was great finally to be able to see it. I think Frank was very happy that I made the commitment to come all the way to Chicago with the main purpose of seeing him and Shane perform. After the show on Saturday night Frank invited Stephen (my best friend from California who also made it out for the fest) to go out drinking with him, shane, their wives, and a few other people. We met at this cool little bar called Sheffields and it was great to kick back, have a few beers and talk about comedy, left and other general mish mash. Frank is such a cool guy and the favorite of my instructors that I've had at Four Day. He has this serious passion for his craft and it is hard to not feel the same way when discussing it with him.
So Sketchfest was great.
Some of the highlights:
Superpunk: Quite possibly some of the funniest and most inventive sketch work I have ever seen and it came from the mind of only two guys, Mike Betette and Phillip Mottaz who both hail from
Chicago. Watch out for these guys, seriously.
Last Call Cleveland: A troupe that hails out of, surprisingly enough, Cleveland. They had a tight, fast-paced, well acted, and ass-kicking funny show. One of their skits had the single best
character that I saw in the entire festival. It was called "Chet Roberts: The Over Accommodating 80's Teen bad Guy". The character is a mix of every 80's teen comedy movie bad guy. He's rich. He's popular. He picks on nerds. He's the captain of the basketball teen. But, he's overly accommodating and helpful to those he picks on. My words don't do it justice but trust me, it was flat out funny.
Some other groups I saw that were equally as fantastic were MEAT (a very funny all female troupe), Flaming Box of Stuff, Olde English, and Punch Drunk Comedy (another Dallas based troupe). I was able to see about 15-20 groups perform who all, for the most part, were really good. The only exception was this group called, "The Waitstaff" based out of Philly who were, in my opinion, fucking terrible. They had one little vignette where a girl was on stage putting chapstick on her lips and then another girl comes up to her and says, "Can I use your chapstick, my lips are dry?" Once she gets the chapstick she then proceeds to shove it down her pants. Ahhh, you meant your vag lips were dry. Hur hur hur! Oscar Wilde be damned for we have the new masters of wit! That skit pretty much summed up their show...it was a fucking disgrace.
So, there was much laughter this weekend but I think the best part is that it really was quite an educations time for me as well. While watching the various groups performed it was great to be able to see what worked and what didn't and then also understand why or why not. I've really learned a lot about comedic writing in the past year and I think this last weekend was a great jumping off point in a lot of ways. I have to keep writing, writing, writing. It is all about the moving pen.
My level four classes should be starting up at Four Day Weekend and I'm super excited about it. In Level four the class basically creates a 60 minute show from scratch. It will be a mix of sketches, monologues and long-form improvisation. The teacher (in this case Frank) takes a step back and basically acts as a director but the entire structure of the show and its contents are up to us. I think we have a really strong group. The level three showcase last month was fantastic and I think level 4 will be more of the same. I really wish some of my classmates could have made it to Chicago for Sketchfest because I think they would have had a blast and also felt that they learned a few things at the same time. But, I can understand how money and scheduling conflicts could have kept people from being able to make it but I'm going to highly suggest that they try to make it next year because it was worth ever last penny.
For those of you who do not know, Dallas has two airports. The big mega-airport known as Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport(DFW) and the smaller much over-shadowed airport (which I've never flown out of before) Dallas Love Field. My flight was scheduled to leave at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning so I show up at DFW at 4:45 and plop my bags down at curbside check in only to have the attendant take a look at my itinerary and tell me "my man, my man, you are at the wrong airport". Jessica said a look a utter horror came across my face. I ran up to the ticket counter to see if I could catch a different flight to make my connection in Houston. The girl behind the ticket counter says "No problem sir. We can change your flight and it will only cost you four fifty." I'm still in freak out mode so I go, "FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS?!?" and see replies, "No, four dollars and fifty cents, sir". I'd like to give a big hearty thank you to Continental Airlines for helping correct my moronic mistake. If only I could carry Continental Airlines around in my pockets to correct every other moronic mistake.
"Oh God, I ran a stop sign and smashed into a hobo with my car!" "No, problem sir, we can make that hobo carcass disappear for only $4.50" "Yippee! Thank you Continental Airlines. So, I made it to Chicago and everyone was happy.
Chicago was great. Wonderful food. Nice people. Nifty shops. But, this weekend was all about Sketchfest, Sketchfest, Sketchfest. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, Chicago Sketchfest is the nations largest comedy sketch fest. The festival, which is in its 4th year is the brain child of Brian Posen, who is a very active member of the Chicago sketch/improve community. This year they had 83 groups participating over a period of two weeks. I became aware of Sketchfest last year but was not able to make it. This year though I had a little extra incentive to attend because Frank Ford, (who is my current teacher at the Four Day Weekend training center) and Shane Estep would be performing a portion of
their latest revue Feetprints (Don't Fail Me Now). at the festival.
Frank and Shane did an amazing job. Their show was polished and funny as well. It was great finally to be able to see it. I think Frank was very happy that I made the commitment to come all the way to Chicago with the main purpose of seeing him and Shane perform. After the show on Saturday night Frank invited Stephen (my best friend from California who also made it out for the fest) to go out drinking with him, shane, their wives, and a few other people. We met at this cool little bar called Sheffields and it was great to kick back, have a few beers and talk about comedy, left and other general mish mash. Frank is such a cool guy and the favorite of my instructors that I've had at Four Day. He has this serious passion for his craft and it is hard to not feel the same way when discussing it with him.
So Sketchfest was great.
Some of the highlights:
Superpunk: Quite possibly some of the funniest and most inventive sketch work I have ever seen and it came from the mind of only two guys, Mike Betette and Phillip Mottaz who both hail from
Chicago. Watch out for these guys, seriously.
Last Call Cleveland: A troupe that hails out of, surprisingly enough, Cleveland. They had a tight, fast-paced, well acted, and ass-kicking funny show. One of their skits had the single best
character that I saw in the entire festival. It was called "Chet Roberts: The Over Accommodating 80's Teen bad Guy". The character is a mix of every 80's teen comedy movie bad guy. He's rich. He's popular. He picks on nerds. He's the captain of the basketball teen. But, he's overly accommodating and helpful to those he picks on. My words don't do it justice but trust me, it was flat out funny.
Some other groups I saw that were equally as fantastic were MEAT (a very funny all female troupe), Flaming Box of Stuff, Olde English, and Punch Drunk Comedy (another Dallas based troupe). I was able to see about 15-20 groups perform who all, for the most part, were really good. The only exception was this group called, "The Waitstaff" based out of Philly who were, in my opinion, fucking terrible. They had one little vignette where a girl was on stage putting chapstick on her lips and then another girl comes up to her and says, "Can I use your chapstick, my lips are dry?" Once she gets the chapstick she then proceeds to shove it down her pants. Ahhh, you meant your vag lips were dry. Hur hur hur! Oscar Wilde be damned for we have the new masters of wit! That skit pretty much summed up their show...it was a fucking disgrace.
So, there was much laughter this weekend but I think the best part is that it really was quite an educations time for me as well. While watching the various groups performed it was great to be able to see what worked and what didn't and then also understand why or why not. I've really learned a lot about comedic writing in the past year and I think this last weekend was a great jumping off point in a lot of ways. I have to keep writing, writing, writing. It is all about the moving pen.
My level four classes should be starting up at Four Day Weekend and I'm super excited about it. In Level four the class basically creates a 60 minute show from scratch. It will be a mix of sketches, monologues and long-form improvisation. The teacher (in this case Frank) takes a step back and basically acts as a director but the entire structure of the show and its contents are up to us. I think we have a really strong group. The level three showcase last month was fantastic and I think level 4 will be more of the same. I really wish some of my classmates could have made it to Chicago for Sketchfest because I think they would have had a blast and also felt that they learned a few things at the same time. But, I can understand how money and scheduling conflicts could have kept people from being able to make it but I'm going to highly suggest that they try to make it next year because it was worth ever last penny.