By CHRIS PACKHAM
A few weeks ago, The New York Times said the stock market was "gyrating," which was some weird, gross "backwards cowgirl" imagery, where walking mummy Alan Greenspan is the cowgirl.
And today, they're explicitly anthropomorphizing world markets by saying that European and Asian stock markets "shuddered" while you were asleep last night. Is this helpful? Characterizing stock markets as "your cute little pal" who "has a really bad cold" and "laughs when you tickle his tummy" seems like it might run counter to what I imagine is a really thick, boring New York Times style guide, but then we are talking about a company that raises its dividends as its profits dwindle, now hovers right above "junk" status as defined by Standard & Poors, the Sanford & Son of stock ratings, and which still can't get enough of Maureen Dowd's stupid fucking "Democrats have vaginas! Unless they're women" shtick, which has the annoying added advantage of pre-empting remarks about Maureen Dowd's dick.Anyway, that's the answer to the question "Where we at?" It's the Econocalyptic Rapture, and unless your name is "Rockefeller," your smelly ass is not going to be leaving your vehicle "unmanned." After the jump, one great way of dealing: Via the ancient Navajo art of improv comedy. Click here, or here:
Barack Obama's Xtreme Makeover: Home Edition Randy, busty Renaissance Faires and randy, busty Civil War re-enactments are lascivious, but very accurate simulations of celebrated periods from American history. I wonder if the history nerds and the insufferable repertory theater nerds of the future will want to stage re-enactments of our very important current era. What will they call it? The Strict Constructionist Faire? I'm picturing nerdy actors walking around dressed up like Wolf Blitzer, George W. Bush, the creepy scuttling gnome from General Guemes, Salta, Argentina, Terry Schaivo, Heath Ledger's Joker, Mohammed Atta, Dane Cook, computer-generated Orville Redenbacher, the sexy, busty cast of The Hills and the sexy, busty cast of the Sunni awakening.
Naturally, science fiction nerds will dress up in Star Fleet uniforms and wander around asking everybody what year it is like a bunch of ridged-forehead douchebags. I was speculating about the possibility of future Strict Constructionist Faires over the weekend while practicing with my improv comedy group, the Giggle Pants Laff Factory, Kansas City's premiere comedy troupe. Here's our cast photo:
You can probably tell that we're a bunch of zany, free-spirited cut-ups who watch tons of television. I'm the one in the middle that looks like a red-headed menopausal housewife, thanks to some side-effects from the regimen of deca-durabolin, HGH, viromone and Clenbuterol my sports doctor says I have to take. Anyway, the Giggle Pants Laff Factory is a comedy gold mine!!!! The kind of gold mine in which six-year-old third-world children toil in the service of financing a civil war that has dragged on for 30 years. ZING! Child slaves of impoverished, war-torn countries, you been ZUNG! That's the kind of free-spirited, no-holds-barred irreverence Kansas City has come to expect from the Giggle Pants Laff Factory.
Anyway, we've been rehearsing our topical new revue, Partial Birth Election, and believe me, no obvious target or easily-impersonated celebrity or political figure is safe from our scathing brand of topical humor. Most of our sketches play out in the following formats: Fake TV news broadcast, fake TV game show, fake TV talk show, fake old-timey radio soap opera, fake wacky reality show or fake Oval Office television address. Basically, any format normally seen on TV or film, or really any mass medium other than actual theater. One time, I suggested to my fellow "laff-meisters" that we should develop some scenes and characters based on concepts of human relationships and interactions, and they all stared at me like I'd just farted really loud. So we went back to rehearsing a game show sketch in which Dick Cheney waterboards contestants until they phrase the correct response in the form of a question. ZING! Basically, we try to ask ourselves: "What would Kansas City's Right Between the Ears do?" And the answer is always the same: Something based on TV. IMPROV!!!!
Showing 1-16 of 16
Sorry, Clay, but he�s right about improv in general. And look at the comments�he�s not the only one who feels this way. Improv, at its worst, is hack and dorky. Uneffingwatchable. At its best it�s highly compelling (see Chris� comments on scenes based on characters and relationships; this type of improv does actually exist). The problem is you�re more likely to see the former.
This has become a major sticking point for me over the past couple of years. Too many improvisers have lost touch with how their show actually plays to an audience, and when they do get feedback they�re too thin-skinned to accept it.
Improvisers: it takes ONE horsebleep show to turn someone off of improv for LIFE. Think about that before you charge people $10 to see the one-act play you rehearsed for 20 minutes the night before your show.
Okay Alan, here is your chance to take Chris to a good improv show.
Loaded Dice performs their last show of the year on November 7 at the Westport Coffeehouse.
Tantrum performs at the Plaza Library on November 12.
Both feature Rob Grabowski, the funniest performer in Kansas City as published in the Pitch, so it must be true!
Chris, the next time you talk out of your ass, you should at least know what you are talking about. ZING!
I have also seen some excellent improv in KC, including shows as good as what I've seen in New York and Boston. (I haven't seen Chicago shows.)
The best ones are as inventive, daring, and unpredictable as the best of any comedy. (I try to feature these good ones at times in this very publication.)
When they're bad, they're everything you say, Chris.
Now you totally have to come to a show with me though. Sucker!
I've seen some bad improv shows in Kansas City, and I've seen some that were really good ... Truly funny, and not relying on schtick, schtick, schtick.
My brother would like you to singing a rhyming song in his honor. His name is Chuck.
ZOMG! Your group sounds AWESOME! I bet you play a KILLER game of Party Quirks. And love your pic�especially the guy shooting himself in the head with the finger-gun in the back.
Wumble, jesus, what is the URL for the wumbleblog, because I would link to that thing all the time.
Can I get a place? Say a place where you might go on a Saturday.
"A birthday party!"
How about an emotion? Something you feel?
"Horny!"
Great. Finally, could I get the name of a person you would not expect to see at a, ha, 'horny birthday party?'
"Shatner!"
Perfect. Now if the rest of you will stand down, I'm going to suck on the barrel of this shotgun and blow my head to kingdom come. Thanks for coming out!
There is something worse: the zany names improvised comedy dorks make up.
LYLAS,
The improvised comedy dork whose most recent performance at Upright Citizens Brigade was a group called "Chicken Noodle Basketball." Though I provided our group's moniker, I didn't make it up.
like
dislike
