Before any Fest stories;

When I was younger (like when I really was as old as I look now) I watched a lot of television - particularly The Late Show With David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. I started with odd nights I was able to stay up late enough in elementary school, and then regularly throughout my teenage years. Even more so in college, when I realized that there were something like five hours of SNL reruns on cable every day - and one afternoon I was laying down in bed and watching the third hour or so while noodling around on my guitar, and thought "It would probably be a pretty sweet gig to play in the backing band on a show like that." But, like my other childhood dream of being a Ghostbuster, I pretty much assumed it would never happen*.

But - after getting home from The Fest, I've ended up joining the long running (and dare I say legendary) Kung Fu Monkeys. And for my first show, we'll be performing as the backing band for the premier of the Chris Gethard Show at the UCB Theatre, this Saturday at midnight. Life goal: ACCOMPLISHED. Time to invest in a Proton Pack**.

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about the whole thing for a number of reasons - particularly since Chris is one of the funniest people I know, and I can't wait to see just what he's got planned. I can honestly say that I'd be going anyway, and I hope it goes well enough that we get to do some more.

More info, including where to make reservations, can be found here;
http://newyork.ucbtheatre.com/shows/2204

*After reading this paragraph, I am literally shocked that I have even managed to kiss a girl in my life.

** And I digress.

It took a plane, and two NJ Transit trains, but I returned home from Florida, Tuesday night, and have spent the past twenty four hours trying to readjust to eating real food, and sleeping at normals hours. There's no time to sit around and relax though, because there is BUSINESS to be taken care of. Business such as practicing a new set of songs, get ready for a couple of new interviews, as well as other writing projects, and use my new bits of furniture from The Container store.

But in all seriousness - the trip, despite some little unexpected stressful surprises, was great. And I'm thinking that, since I'm trying to work on some new writing projects anyway, it'll help get me going by posting some of the story-highlights here over the next few days or so. Now if you don't mind, I need to finally finishing up unpacking, as well as catching up on television I missed before a FIRST BAND PRACTICE (suspense!).

I'm finishing getting ready to leave for Florida tomorrow (packing, cleaning, and generally doing what I can to ease the "Back to real world/getting down to business upon getting back home"). I just found out yesterday that there's a few complications with our travel plans, but I guess that just means that this will be our theme song for the weekend;



Let's see if I can survive a week of uncertainty, and chain-restaurant dining!

I did make it to see Tracy Morgan - here's what it was like;



(Side note: I was sitting directly behind the young ladies he addresses at the end, ergo, had I arrived just a few minutes early and gotten those front row seats, he would've been interested in getting ME pregnant)

But it was pretty great - I do really enjoy it when comedians can get serious, instead of just desperately trying to be "on" all the time. Also, I already finished his new memoir, I Am The New Black (I got my copy signed!), and it is pretty good. Lots of "Whoa..." moments.

After that finished up, I went over to Queens, to see a comedy/storytelling show run by some friends of mine. It seemed like I was running late, but I ended up getting there just in time to be the impromptu storyteller for the night, which was great - aside from the fact that 1) I started to feel a little off on my way there, and felt TERRIBLE by the time I was on my way home, causing me to pass out in bed with a stomach ache as soon as I made it back, and 2) There is exactly one picture of me, mid-performance that has surfaced on the Internet, and sweet holy lord, I am completely incapable of looking cool, ever.

But so I've tried to rest up, as much as I could, in preparation for my weekend which included seeing In Defence from Minneapolis yesterday. This is why In Defence is probably my favorite hardcore band;



My other notes on the show - 1) It seems like all the hardcore/crust punk type dudes that try to "Tear it up" in the pit and whatnot are all really out of shape, who's biggest source of exercise comes from stretching and actually "warming up to mosh". 2) The opening band from New Jersey played a song about how they hated cops, the singer encouraging people to move closer if they felt the same way, then proceeding to walk up and shove me backwards exactly two seconds in to the song. I had no idea it was so obvious that I'm a huge narc.

Another quick update - Yesterday I went through and updated all of the record review sections, with every record I've reviewed this year. It took a good chunk of time, and I was literally exhausted afterwards! (It doesn't help that I may as well be using Geocities or Angelfire or something like that)

Now, I'm off to hopefully take in a comedy show tonight, and hopefully meet Tracey Morgan.

Quick update - Remember that time I went on tour with the Strait A's? You know, months ago? Well, you can finally read about it, at Razorcake.org.

Otherwise, I'm trying to finish up some more cleaning (doing ok), a writing goal I've set for myself (doing "ok"), and generally take it easy and rest up before going down to The Fest for a short week (which, considering that I feel really hungover right now, and I spent last night going to a comedy show, and then coming straight home to watch late night talk shows, I am not doing well at all).

Also before I leave, I will hopefully update the reviews section of this site before I leave.

DOUBLE also; I personally would like to see the Balloon Family get charged on some things, for no better reason than I think it will be hilarious to see what type of contraption they try to escape in! It will be delightful!

I have been busy!

*I worked a few odd days at the same company I was temping over the summer, this time doing some archival/reorganization stuff. The biggest pluses were the fact that I wasn't a receptionist/ergo did not have to answer the phone all day, and I even had a nice little temp-cubical, next to a window that actually had a really nice view of some mountains, and I may have made into a fort at one point. It wasn't an incredibly long time by any means, but it did net me a little bit of money for future schemes, as well as help me be sure that I'll actually be able to eat when I go down to Florida later this month (actually, knowing my dietary habits, that may actually be for the worse...).

*I had a pretty great time making my story teller debut at the UCB Theatre this past weekend! But allow me to paint you the picture;

I'd been taking a class on story telling shows (such as the Moth, or the other hundred similar shows around New York City), along with nine other really funny area comedy people. "Telling a story?" you're saying, "That's just talking! That's easy!" Wrong! Because in the last class, my story was a whopping TWICE the length it was supposed to be. Yikes! So, the time in between that class, and the actual show was spent doing almost nothing but rewriting, practicing, and me thinking "SWEET HEAVENS, PLEASE DON'T GO OVER SIX MINUTES!"

Day of the show, I have to go into the city absurdly early, and kill time by walking around, and attempting to sell off old CD's that I don't want (because I like being able to walk around my bedroom). Unfortunately, that went pretty terrible - only getting rid of one, out of a bulky pile - until I decided to search through the sale LP's and found a copy of TARKUS (which, admittedly, it was Mike from Go Metric who exposed me to the sheer awesomeness that is this record). I haven't attempted to play it yet, though the B-side (not that that side matters as much) looked fairly dirty, but either way, it would still make for a pretty sweet decoration.

But I could not believe I stumbled upon it, putting me in a great mood before the show. I was still a little nervous, and it didn't seem like anyone I knew had come out, which is always disheartening, but a handful of friends did - and either way, it didn't matter! Because there were still a number of other people there, and I got some pretty good laughs, which, is usually even more impressive to me!

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I've actually written about my story on here before (when I interned at a network television station's office in Manhattan), so I won't recap it. But also because I'm trying to push myself into using it for ANOTHER project. Let's see how that one works out!

Also: I'm well aware that I'm writing about this latest performance, when there was an EARLIER performance (of something I wrote, at least), about a month ago, which I have said very little about. There is reason for that! GOOD reason! And so I will write about that one in time.