Week 2 (much belated)

Okay, so here’s the deal: I’ve barely been updating this blog. You know it, and I know it. The problem has been finding a decent enough internet connection during our port days to upload pictures with. It’s been hard, even though on my last boat contract the internet was good enough to upload pictures (slowly) from the boat. But today Piero and I discovered an Asian restaurant in Cozumel, and decided to hang out there and take advantage of their excellent connection, wonderful service, and mediocre Asian fusion food (I, unfortunately, cannot recommend the spicy tuna roll).

So yeah, these pictures are from about a month and a half ago. I’m going to try and accelerate the pace on this blog, and maybe do some updates without pictures, just to keep friends and family at home abreast of what I’ve been up to. Remember, this is a two way street – I’d love nothing more right now than to get e-mail, and hear about how you’ve been doing.

So yeah, when last we left America had a new president, and I hadn’t yet performed on the boat. But we have posters, complete with my old headshot, which looks nothing like me.


Though as Piero pointed out, I look a bit like Jack Nicholson as the Joker.

Our first show was our big “Second City Archive” show, which we do in a 700-seat theatre called the Stardust. It’s huge, with a cool art deco/ vaudeville feel, and we have to wear headset/ Britney Spears microphones when performing.

Our show includes the scene “Hand Sanitizer”, which is a take-off of the “blackout” scene “Soft Serve”. Point is, during the scene Piero and I play machine dispensers aboard the ship – I spit a mouthful of water onto Alice’s hands (aka. hand sanitizer) and Piero spits whipped cream on her hand (aka. soft serve ice cream). This may sound incredibly dumb, but I swear it gets the biggest laugh in our show. After the scene ends and the lights come down, I’m supposed to wipe up the water on the stage in the dark. In our second show Alice ran right into me in the dark, tripped end over end over me, and we both fell to the stage. She was fine, but the back of my head and suit got covered in whipped cream. So I did our final, 10-minute scene, unwittingly covered with whipped cream.


The next day we arrived in Cozumel (a tiny island off the coast of Mexico). We all got off the boat to explore, with Beth (pictured centre) leading the charge.


We were in search of authentic Mexican food, and adventure! Along the way I took some cool pictures of VW cars:



But those paled in comparison to my next discovery... BIMBO!


When I was 15 years old, I visited Mexico alongside my uncle John. Given that John was born in Nova Scotia but raised in Mexico, his knowledge of the local culture meant I didn’t have to learn anything: therefore in Spanish I can only count to six, and barely order a coke. But I remember Bimbo brand sweet bread (or “Conchas), which are amazing! It’s basically a soft cake, with powdered sugar on top. For my nerdier friends, it’s what I always assumed Elven lembras bread tasted like when I read “Lord of the Rings”. I ran into the first convenience store I saw with Bimbo the unfortunately named bear mascot, and bought as many as they had (they go for about $1 US for a package of two).


So we eventually found a place for lunch, which was little more than a stall, but smelled delicious. I got a plate of enchiladas for $4, which looked like nothing but brown goop, but tasted fantastic.

After lunch we walked back to the cruise ship dock and found a bar called Barracudas, where a lot of the cruise ship crew go to hang out and use the (decidedly crappy) internet. Here are some pictures I took of the bar:


And a picture TJ snapped of us swimming:


We had another great snack of guacamole and chips (those real great homemade tortilla chips that you can only get in Mexico and at great Mexican restaurants). If any of you guys back in Toronto can recommend some really good Mexican joints, I’m always interested. Here are a couple more of the pictures I snapped in Cozumel:



Not sure about that Vampire one. So our first week flew by really fast, and we had a great time with Beth and TJ. On our last night Beth took us out for a customary producers dinner, where we were not only allowed but encouraged to order anything we wanted. Here’s Piero “two steaks” Procaccini* saying something that has TJ doubled over with laughter. This picture was also taken moments before Beth went to the bathroom, and we told the waiter it was her birthday partly for free cake, but mostly to draw unwanted attention to her.


* Note. The nickname “Two Steaks” was ironically not bestowed that night, but weeks later as a result of Piero’s Atkins diet (on which he often orders two steaks minus any potatoes on the side).

Here is a picture of me in my suit, sipping on Grand Marnier. I am several martinis in at this point.


So I guess that’s an acceptable amount of photographic evidence of my travels. Our first week was a complete rush, and we were actually thankful that the next week was relatively quiet. But here’s a picture of our last night with Beth and TJ, drinking at my favourite bar on the ship (or collection of bars) Bar City. They have a martini bar, a champagne lounge, and a malt/ whiskey bar. And it all looks like it’s from the 1940’s (or the video game “Bioshock”).


So that was our whole first week, in pictures. That only leaves me with 8 weeks to catch up on. So what I’m going to do is start writing as well about what I’ve been up to recently, while I upload pictures from earlier in the cruise. I’ll be writing about the cruise in both the past and present tense – think of it like an episode of “Lost”. Speaking of, Piero and I have been catching up on recent episodes of ‘Lost’ with Chris, one of the singers on the ship. He’s in the Jean Ann Ryan Company of dancers (usually referred to as the JARs). Really nice cat – looks a lot like a young Willam Defoe.

Recently we’ve been pretty settled into cruise life overall. Last week saw a visit from my aunt Imelda, my uncle Lewie, and their friends Greg and Gertie (all coming to us from Antigonish, Nova Scotia). I’ll have pictures of that visit up soon. Since then we had a stop in Miami where Alice and I went to the mall (she was very excited to visit an Urban Outfitters store). I raided the Barnes & Noble and managed to find some decent comic books: the last two issues of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8”, Ed Brubaker’s “The Man Who Laughs”, and the first volume of “The Walking Dead”, an excellent zombie-survival comic. I also downloaded last Thursday’s episode of “The Daily Show”, with the much-touted Jim Cramer interview. I thought that was excellent, by the way, and wouldn’t be surprised to see Cramer get “Tucker Carlson-ed” and lose his show.

Our shows recently have been going well. We’ve had a sudden influx of spring break crowds on the boat, and they get especially rowdy (though enthusiastic) during our improv shows. This makes it difficult during our Friday night “Family Improv Shows” (which keep getting scheduled at 10:30 – ugh). We did a game last night where audience volunteers come on stage and finish our sentences. In spite of the children in the audience, and the 10 year old volunteer on stage left, our second volunteer (an obviously drunk woman) kept offering inappropriate suggestions (gynecologist, etc). So that’s been challenging, but at least our shows have been well received.

Oh, and speaking of shows I split the seat of my pants during our big show on Monday night. It happened just as the lights were coming down on a scene, so no one in the audience noticed. Luckily (I guess) I’m not in the next 15 minutes of the show, so I ran all the way from the front of the ship to my cabin (back of the ship and up 5 floors), got new pants, took a picture of the ripped ones, changed, and was back in place with about 6 minutes to spare, and the audience never realizing a thing. And no one has let me forget about it since.

In general though we’ve pretty much settled in for the long haul. I keep getting random bouts of homesickness, mostly for seeing people or eating specific foods form back home. I would kill for some Sushi on Bloor, or a decent slice of pizza, or to do a show at The Bad Dog right now. But I’ll have to focus on the now, and see as much of the ports as I can before we take off. After all, we only have 4 more weeks before the Panama Canal...

Cheers everyone. Keep those e-mails coming.

Week One and a Half: Chicago and the Boat

(ed. note: I'm really sorry for how long it's taken me to get this blog up - I wrote it 2 weeks ago, and I've been trying ever since then to find a decent enough internet connection to upload pictures. I promise to try and update this blog more frequently, but that's all internet permitting. For now, enjoy!)

Hey everyone, greetings from the sunny port of (looks out nearby window) Cozumel. Just to give you an overview, things are great, Chicago was a blast, and we’re enjoying the boat. I know it’s been a couple of weeks since I updated this blog, so I apologize to... Mom. And Dad. And anyone else who stumbled upon this. I’m gonna use this post to catch up on the last 2 weeks, mostly in picture form, so I’m gonna go pretty fast.

On our first night arriving in Chicago, Alice and I didn’t know what to eat (and didn’t want to venture out of our Second City provided apartment into the freezing 24- temperatures). So we called the offices at Second City, and they recommended Marcello’s Deep Dish Pizza for delivery (that Monica is a life-saver!)

The pizza came surprisingly fast (I only had time to watch my first ever episode of the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ – I liked it), and was some of the best deep dish either of us had ever eaten. It remained delicious 4 days later, when we still couldn’t finish it!


Across the street from our apartment (which was only a 4 minute walk to Second City) was a bar called the Twin Anchors, as seen in ‘The Dark Knight’, when Two Face shoots a crooked cop. Sadly, we never got time to go in and have a drink (this was only sad to Alice, who is still often amazed and dismayed by my nerdiness).


Speaking of food (and I usually do on this blog), I was finally able to purchase my beloved McSkillet Burrito from McDonalds. The fools at Canadian McDonald’s won’t sell them. Damn FDA... Anyways, it’s a breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs, sausage, and hash browns baked in. In my opinion, it’s the closest thing to real food McDonald’s makes. I highly recommend it.


But this blog isn’t just about food, so I guess I should write about what we’re actually, you know, doing. Up next is a picture from the Mainstage Theater at the Second City in Chicago. For those of my friends and relatives who aren’t comedy nerds, this is literally the exact same stage (plus or minus a coat of paint) that people like Bill Murray, John Belushi, and Tina Fey worked on in their younger/ poorer days.


Pictured on the Mainstage is Pierro Procaccini, one of our cast mates. He’s from Chicago, and has been performing and directing for the Second City for the past few years. He’s also our resident cruise ship expert, having worked on about 6 of them. Super nice guy, really funny, and will laugh at anything. We had 4 days of rehearsal in the theatre, working mostly with our director, TJ Shanoff (or as I call him, “American Marcel St. Pierre”). I’ll tell you more about TJ later on. We also did a workshop with Mick Napier, or as the folks back home might remember him, the bald judge from “Next Comedy Legend” who looked like JK Simmons (the bald cop from 'Law and Order', 'The Closer', or the dad from 'Juno').


Mick Napier


JK Simmons

Oh shit, I was on a reality show.

Anyways, the rehearsals were great, and we got to check out the new Mainstage Show at the Second City (featuring Lauren Ash from the Toronto Second City, which was awesome to see). The show was pretty great (I especially dug the ‘Polar Bear’,‘Nuva Ring’, and ‘Chicago Olympics’ scenes). Alice and I also got invited to join the improv set after the show, which was hugely appreciated.

That night at the Second City a huge contingent of Toronto comedians were also in the audience, (most of the Sketchersons, and the delightful Julie Dumais) because they were in town for the Chicago Sketch Comedy festival (which I was also appearing in - I was wiped by the end of the week). Me and the Approximately 3 Peters were once again performing in the festival, which was a blast. This is us, after the show, drunk on... uh, success...


Oh, and during the festival, Alice and I went to a place across the street called Joey’s Brickhouse (Jason and Neil, was that the place you were telling us about?) We went between shows to get a late dinner, but they had so many amazing desserts! We had orange floats, waffle sundaes, delicious coffee, and S’MORES!!! They brought us a small fire and a lazy susan full of ingredients, and we roasted our own s’mores! I now truly know what it is to eat like a king.



We managed to see lots of great troupes: I saw Last Call Cleveland, whose videos killed; and the guys saw BriKo, who are supposed to be excellent. We also caught the other three Toronto acts at the fest: The Sketchersons, The Imponderables, and Accidental Company (seen below). This is myself, Brian and Jordan at the “Sketchubator”, a late night event where sketch troupes perform unusual (or, “bad”) sketches for each other. And you get to drink on stage.


So, on Saturday the 17th we did a full day of rehearsal at Second City, then a show at the sketchfest, then I stayed and drank until about 2am, then headed home and got about 45 minutes of sleep... and Alice and I got picked up by the airport shuttle at 4am. Ouch. SO we flew from the freezing, -25 degree temperatures of Chicago to the +18 degree temps of Miami. I barely remember the flight. But we did get picked up at the airport in a limousine, which was a nice way to officially start the day.


You can see pretty much everyone in this picture: along the back is Beth Kligerman (producer for the Second City and person who hired Alice and I); Dave Keeton (our musical director, veteran of several Boat gigs, and co-founder of the Dad’s Garage improv theatre in Atlanta), TJ Shannof (our director, currently hard at work on a musical comedy about Illinois Governor Rod Blagoivitch); Pierro again; and Michael Bertrando (a really funny dude who’s originally from Philadelphia). Not pictured are Alice and Hilary Bauman, a very funny improviser who has worked with the Second City and Boom Chicago.

So we got on the boat alright (in spite of the jackass guard working at the Miami Port). We spent most of the first day catching up on our sleep, and awoke to a beautiful sea day on Monday morning.


Monday was spent mostly rehearsing our big show. Like the last boat gig I did we do two shows per week of old Second City scenes, as well as two completely improvised shows. For those really in the know, we’re doing some pretty good archive scenes, like “Applebees”, “Customs” (from ‘Reloaded’), “Orchestra”, “Vera”, and “Dead Grandama” (don’t worry actual grandmas – it’s just a name).

Tuesday our director, TJ, was quite insistent on switching rehearsal to the afternoon and evening. It may have been our first port day in Roatan...


...but we spent it inside watching President Obama get sworn in via the (I shit you not) 2-storey television in the main atrium. As you can see, both TJ and Bertrando were very excited for the whole event (I think Michael even volunteered for his campaign).


TJ and Pierro.


Michael Bertrando.


We watched from 9am until Obama was sworn in at noon (or not sworn in, depending on whether Justice Roberts actually did make a mistake). The whole morning was genuinely inspirational – except that a crew boat drill had been scheduled for that morning, so the Sound System would occasionally cut out for instructions. Seriously, it sounded like this:

OBAMA: On this day we come to proclaim and end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for too long have-

CRUISE DIRECTOR: And now we will proceed with the forward stations. Please wait for a series of ten loud alarms.

OBAMA: ...journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less-

TEN LOUD ALARMS SOUND. IT SEEMS TO TAKE FOREVER.

OBAMA: ...principles-

CRUISE DIRECTOR: And now the mid-stations. Only 7 more stations to go...

But the crowd was very resolute, and there was much applause throughout the whole ceremony. It was pretty neat to watch the whole event with people who actually, you know, got to vote for him.


Okay, I was going to write up to today, but this blog is already enormous. So I’m going to end here, and catch it up to present day by the end of this week. I hope everyone is doing well back home, and enjoying the... brisk... winter. I’m gonna go get another daiquiri.

Cheers!


We live here.

Chicago Day 2; Hey, does this thing still work?

Hey everyone, I'm here in Chicago, rehearsing to go on another cruise ship gig for the Second City. Alice and I are currently sitting in the corporate apartment, watching "Seinfeld" reruns (the "they're real, and they're spectacular" episode) and looking for something non-comedy related to do tonight (we're checking out the Second City Mainstage show tomorrow night).

And now, a picture!


This port-a-potty was on the way to our rehearsal at the Second City today. Eat it, Maggio!

I just wanted to check if this blog still works (and still updates to Facebook). So here goes. Feel free to comment on the blog, or drop me an e-mail. Cheers all!

Week... Uh... Six? What Country Am I In...?

Alright everyone: this is the one where my blog catches up to the present. This’ll be mostly pictures – a lot of them. Hang on kids; learning curve’s steep on this one.

Happy Canada Day! As is customary in my home and native land, we celebrated July 1st with the traditional “cute Canadian girls”:


These are 3 of the YC’s, or “Youth Counselors”, on the ship (think camp counselors). From right to left is Jennifer, Patrick, and Isabella. For some reason, it seems that most of the YC’s come from Canada. In fact, there’s another girl named Amanda who I discovered this night went to the same high school as myself (go Prince Andrew High! Go... Wildca- no... Fightin’ Eagle- no... ah, whatever). On our first day on the ship, we accidentally stole Jennifer’s luggage when we were grabbing our own. We replaced it eventually, but I don’t think she ever found out...

The evening was celebrated with the time-honoured Canadian traditions of Molson Canadian, and the “Frosh 1” compilation CD. Much hooting and dancing was observed during the traditional Canadian hymn, “Home For A Rest”. And there was cake:


And then the cake was thrown everywhere:


Earlier in the evening, Derek was heard to say “I’m just gonna get dressed up tonight. Suit, tie... No particular reason”. That... turned out to be a mistake.

A couple of nights later we finally checked out the private karaoke rooms here on the boat. They don’t really work perfectly, so they’re not open to the passengers. But the crew can sign them out, and they’re a blast. This particular night was the final night on the boat for one of our technical people from the theatre – Butch, who is from the Phillipines, and had been on the ship for 10 months straight! That’s him, on the far right:


That’s me and our head tech Rusty, throwing down some mad rhymes on an Eminem song. And by “mad”, I of course mean, “buzzed”.

This is Amanda doing a great rendition of “Gloria”, and Marco in the background, just being awesome:


And this is the girls, singing... the Spice Girls:


That week went by pretty uneventfully, though we did manage to check out both ‘Transformers’ and ‘Ratatouille’ during our stop in Florida (fun action but too much stupidity in ‘Transformers’; and ‘Ratatouille’ was excellent, if maybe a little too dry). I also managed to pick up a $20 used copy of the Daily Show’s “Indecision 2004” DVD box set, which I have watched front to back since then. Ah, Sen. Zel Miller...

That weekend, we stopped back in New York again, and I once again hung out with my buddy Robert (who you may all be watching a bit more of in the near future). Robert and I grabbed some quick lunch, and then he agreed to indulge my touristy plans – to go to the top of the Empire State Building:


I can honestly say, this is one of my favourite things that I’ve done on this cruise.




I thought Robert would enjoy this...


I also had a lot of fun taking some black and white shots.







Oh yeah, and it turns out they shoot the Daily Show like, 1 block from where we dock every single weekend.


For the record, the directions to the strip club are entirely accurate.

That weekend we had the first of our visitors join us on the ship: Katy’s mom, Susan. Susan came to visit us all the way from Indiana, and stayed with Katy for the week. For some of the people doing longer contracts on the ships, the Second City will pay for a guest to come join them on the ship for a week. (Since I’m only doing two months, I don’t get to bring anyone out, so don’t bother asking). On Susan’s first night on the ship, we decided to try out the steakhouse here on the ship, Cagney’s.


That’s Susan, seated in the middle. Ooh, and that’s my new tie that I picked up in Manhattan. The meal was great, and though a bit more expensive than the other restaurants on the ship, definitely worth it.


And here is a picture of Marco, telling a story about a time he nearly beat up some bartender in Yorkville, defending the honour of his lady. Awww...


It was great having Susan on the boat for the week. She’s really sweet, and has a great sense of humour. Very much reminded us of Katy, who I could tell really enjoyed having the company from home. It’s strange how being out here on this great boat, and visiting all these amazing countries can really bring into relief all the things at home that you didn’t expect to miss so much.

Ooh! Remember that Jeff Trachta guy I wrote about a few weeks ago? He’s the performer from Vegas, who sings “Proud to be an American” at the end of his show? Well he came back to the ship, and we hung out with him a bit. Turns out he’s actually a pretty nice guy. Here’s a picture of him teaching us to do the hustle:


This one’s for you, Carly.

I decided to go off on my own a bit this week, and check out the snorkel park in Bermuda. It’s right next to an old Colonial Fort, which you see in the background. The snorkeling wasn’t exactly... picturesque. But I did see lots of spiffy fish, and followed them around for a while. I like to think that they eventually took me in as one of their own.


Taco Time! Occasionally while we’re at sea, the buffet upstairs will serve tacos for lunch. These days are cause for celebration.


Here’s some more of the dancers from the boat, also enjoying the taco-y goodness. This is Reuben, Bree, and Jolene, all really sweet folks.


Remember that picture of the sunset I included in my last blog? Here’s a much nicer one that I took a picture of this past week.


The next morning we arrived in Tortola, and I once again went off on my own for most of the day. I found a great little homemade Italian gelato place called “La Dolce Vita”.


Everything you see is as delicious as it looks. I had the Cherry Vanilla ice cream, which had real whole cherries, and cherry sauce drizzled over the top of the vat. I’m thinking of writing a travel book after I get home, “Ian MacIntyre’s Guide to Caribbean Ice Cream”. I wandered through the street for a while more, doing some gift shopping. There are also wild chickens everywhere on this island. Carly had told me about a bakery with free wireless internet, so I hung out there and checked my stuff for a couple of hours. I also bought some music from the iTunes store, which was great. I highly recommend the newest albums by The Lovely Feathers, and Memphis (side project by the guy from Stars). After that I headed back to the ship, and snapped this picture of a rather ominous storm off in the distance.


Meh, it wasn’t that bad.

The last stop on the cruise this past week was in St. Thomas, where we spent some more time hanging out at the Barefoot Buddha coffee shop. I’m really hoping to get back to some more beaches next time we get there, since believe it or not I’m actually coming close to the end of this cruise. One thing we did do was take the Skyride gondola up to the top of the foot hills. Amanda and I did the 5-minute ride up to the top of the hill, and took in the view.


And this is where I leave it for another installment. The view from the top of the Skyride was really relaxing, and I’m so glad Amanda was up for joining me on the trip. I hope everyone at home is doing well, and I’ll talk to you guys soon.


Oh yeah, and did anyone watch my TV show?

Week Five: Part Two...

Hey everyone, long time no post. I wish I had a good excuse as to why it’s been so long since I’ve posted a new blog. Something like “I’ve gotten especially busy”, or “I’ve been really preoccupied with some great project I’m working on”, or simply “pirates”. But nope, life on the boat remains exactly the same: Sleep, waffles, Law & Order reruns, sleep, sporadic comedy shows, sleep, gym. Not that I’m complaining about my itinerary - far from it. But I really have no idea where my time has been going lately.

But for now, let’s take it back a week (or two), to when I last updated the ol’ blog. It seems like every day or so on the boat is another crew party, which suits me just fine. Especially since they usually have free beer. This particular party was down on one of the lower decks, near the engine room. The room was unbelievably cramped, but that just added to the fun:



Here’s another picture of Rusty and his girlfriend, Andreea:


And here is the night’s entertainment: Next Stage! They’re one of the musical acts here on the boat. Next Stage is a group from the Philippines, and have been really hospitable to us ever since we arrived here on the boat. Here they are, I believe rocking out to a cover of Aha’s “Take On Me”:


The rest of the night is kind of a blur. Thusly, the next day was pretty low key. We stopped in St. Thomas, and I pretty much slept until noon. I only ventured out long enough to check my e-mail at a nearby coffee shop (and drink a delicious Vietnamese latte, made with sweetened condensed milk). Oh, and I also snapped this picture of my first yellow terrorism alert:


Patriotic!

So that night was a pretty cool event for the whole Second City cast. One of the dancers from the ship also reads tarot cards for passengers. Apparently, he’s been studying astrology for some years now. This, is Jared:


He enjoys dancing, Harry Potter books, and the dark arts (I doubt the last two are a coincidence, do you...). So Jared offered to read all of our fortunes for us, and though I don’t usually believe in such things, I am self-absorbed enough to enjoy having someone talk exclusively about me for 20 minutes.


A good time was had by all that night (with the exception of Katy and Derek’s oddly ominous fortunes). We ordered a ridiculous amount of room service, and each person had their cards read personally by Jared. For the record, here’s what I ended up with:


Evidently, I will be forced to make an emotional decision in the near future, as well as displaying hermit-like tendencies and finding new opportunities in my chosen career. Sounds pretty good to me. Oh, and if you look closely, Jared has really kick-ass dragon tarot cards. Not that they tell the future any better; dragons are just awesome.

(Speaking of telling the future, I am currently watching Ben Affleck’s “Paycheck” on TNT. It’s such a shame when good books are made into really terrible movies.)

Anyways, we were due for another trip to New York, and this weekend Michelle was meeting Susan, a friend of hers.


Susan is absolutely the bee’s knees. Not only has she lived in New York for several years and yet remains and entirely sweet human being, but she was also in the New York cast of “Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding” (she played Marina). So I tagged along, and we all went down to Chinatown to get some lunch.


As you can see, a street festival was in progress. Thing was, no one we asked knew what the festival was for. Not only that, but each group marching through the street was representing a completely different cultural group: there were Mexican children doing a traditional dance, Koreans doing tea kwon do demonstrations, etc. Shockingly, even though the parade took place on July 1st (Canada Day) there was not even one Canadian group to be seen. My repeated attempts to march in the parade were met with police resistance, and eventually, hostility...

Later, we had some delicious Vietnamese food at a place Susan recommended (hmmm... I’m noticing a Vietnamese pattern. Improv rules dictate that I should “heighten and explore this pattern”. Preferably by eating more delicious Vietnamese food...). After that we wandered around Chinatown for a while, which was a-ok by me, seeing as how it was a gorgeous day.


Susan soon led us to our next destination – The Chinatown Ice Cream Factory!


This place kicked ass, for several reasons: a) it was not a factory at all, and was instead more of an exotic ice cream emporium, b) the mascot on the banner kind of looked like Bowser, the final boss in the original “Super Mario Bros” NES game, c) Their ice cream selection was both varied and delicious! After being temporarily disappointed several ‘out of stock’ flavours (notably strawberry cheesecake, ginger, and wasabi) I finally settled on their green tea and pumpkin pie concoctions.


See that smile on my face? You have not lived until you have tried pumpkin pie ice cream. Iced treats in hand, we then strolled through the streets in search of a subway stop. Which took forever. Luckily, this afforded us time to get lost- I mean, wander through Little Italy.


Man, those Italians love selling Sopranos merchandise...

Seriously, Little Italy was great, with some of the streets being blocked off for people to walk through on the weekends. I’d love to go back and visit, if future weekends permit.

Eventually we bid Susan goodbye, and climbed back aboard our floating shopping mall for another week of carefully structured and focus-tested adventure! We all went out for sushi that night, partly to thank Jared for the free tarot readings, and partly to get some damn fine sushi. Seriously, $15 dollars for all you can eat! Not only that, but the sushi is probably some of the best-prepared food on the ship.

Here’s Amanda and Marco, enjoying the edemame beans:


Here’s Katy and Jared:


And here’s Derek, looking entirely filled up:


And here is a time-lapse representation of my sushi experience:





More... pickled... ginger... blargh...

Well, it’s about that time again: the time when I get too lazy to continue writing. Seems to happen a lot lately. Anyways, I’ll leave you all with a picture of a beautiful sunset I happened to catch right after sushi. This week, I’ll have a nice long blog of mostly pictures, to catch you all up on our high-seas adventure. Cheers!

Week 5: Part One

Greetings, true-believers! Ian here, with another quick installment of the Ian-Boat-Blog. This one is mostly gonna be pictures, but being worth a thousand words, it should be more than enough.

So this week, we went back on the 8-day cruise, which takes us down through the Caribbean (also known as “the better cruise”). Don’t get me wrong, both are nice, I just prefer the 8-day. Our first stop was beautiful Bermuda, where I decided to switch things up a little and actually set foot off the boat this time.


Adventure! The whole group of us took a ferry across the bay to Hamilton (about a 15 minute ride). We rode in a boat called “the Tempest”, though I noticed the ferry-boat traveling the opposite direction was called “Serenity” (only my nerd friends will get the reference, and understand why I was jealous). We walked around beautiful downtown Hamilton for a few hours, and checked out a nice little park right downtown.




After we poked around for a bit, we discovered a faun who took us to a magical underground labyrinth... (another nerd reference. Sorry Mom)


We looked around at some more of the town, which is very beautiful and still looks very Colonial-British. They have some very beautiful churches, though we didn’t really get the chance to go in.


This is the historic Hamilton City Hall & arts Centre.


Out front you can see a priceless cast iron statue of local children being taught to read by “the OC’s” Micha Barton:


The night before we arrived in Hamilton, I got an e-mail from my friend Andrew back home in Toronto. His brother lives down here in Bermuda, so Andrew has been to visit several times. He was quite adamant that we check out a local diner known as “The Spot”, known for their pancakes (or “griddle cakes” as Andrew called them. This term drew bewildered looks from the counter-staff however). We found the restaurant easily, but had missed the breakfast cutoff. Luckily, the guy agreed to make me delicious pancakes anyway!


Mission Accomplished!

Here is a picture of the diner. At first we thought the meal was a bit pricey. But then we discovered that Bermuda itself is a bit pricey.


Our next stop in Bermuda was a beach we had heard a great deal about, Horseshoe Beach. We hopped on a local bus and drove for about 15 minutes. During the ride an sweet little old lady leaned in behind Katy and I and struck up a conversation. I shall provide an excerpt.

IAN: So have you lived in Bermuda all your life?

SWEET OLD LADY: No, I moved here when I was 14 years old. I’ve lived here for 60 years.

KATY: Wow, you must really love Bermuda.

SWEET OLD LADY: Well, it was sure better before all the poor people moved here!

IAN: Uhh... yeah, I hear that can be a problem.

VAGUELY RACIST OLD LADY: I heard that three of “them” stabbed someone outside my apartment last night. This island is falling apart. The police don’t do anything to stop them!

She then went on to loudly decry immigration, other passenger’s tattoos, and spoke at great length to the man behind us about the Book of Revelations and the End of Days.

Anyways, We pressed on, and soon arrived at Horseshoe Bay. Definitely the nicest beach I’ve seen this entire trip (and therefore, in my entire life)


We spent the entire afternoon there, getting some sun (I didn’t burn for once!), swimming, snorkeling, and (of course) climbing on big rocks and exploring.







After a few hours we hopped back on the bus and drove the rest of the way around the island. It was about a 30-minute trip, through the nice rural towns of Bermuda. I have to say, Bermuda reminds me weirdly of Cape Breton – very coastal, with the same kind of homes and small town feeling. Except more palm trees.

That night back on the boat we all went down to the dance club in the front of the boat, “Maharinis”. The club has a Persian/ desert vibe to it (the adjoining casino is called “Maharajah’s”, naturally). That night the dancers had told us to come check out the show – since we were sailing through the Bermuda Triangle they were doing a live version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. And you know what that means... ZOMBIES!


From left to right that’s Chuck, Jolene, and Stephanie (Dean and Vicki are in the back). The show was great (the dancers on this ship are really talented). The best part though was Derek’s reaction to the show. He had been very excited to see it. But as soon as the announcer began his spiel about “There’s an old story among the cruise ships that a group of dancers disappeared in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle”, Derek went “Oh shit, they’re gonna do it”. Turns out Derek has a legitimate fear of zombies. Not like he believes in them, they just seriously give him the wiggins. But Derek endured, though he got loudly spooked from behind by Zombie-Jolene.

Later that night was a giant deck party for the crew. These parties generally mean free beer, and painfully loud music.


I actually spent most of the night hanging out with a girl named Elizabeth, who later turned out to be the Captain’s daughter visiting from Norway. Luckily, I did not make out with her. (we’re not even allowed in passenger’s cabins – think how fired I would have been for that...). Here is a picture of Elizabeth, next to a large man in a see-through one-piece eating chicken wings on a bed.


Well, that’s all for this entry. I’ll have more stuff up soon, but in the meantime I will leave you with a picture of a very-uncomfortable Derek, surrounded by the living dead. Ahoy!

Week 4: A New Hope

Here I am, week four of my travels. I hope you guys enjoy these blogs – I enjoy crankin’ em out. This week I’m going to try to get myself caught up to the present day – to give you an idea of what I mean, it is July 2nd as of this writing, but this blog will cover June 17-24th.

Speaking of June 17th, that was another of our New York days.


This was our day to meet with Beth Kleiggerman (sp?), the talent coordinator for the Second City. Beth is an absolutely amazing woman; amazingly personable and friendly, and with an astonishing memory for all things Second City. Namely, the people working for the Second City. She oversees, keeps track of, and has a hand in hiring pretty much everyone working for the Second City (at their half-dozen theatres, touring companies, and cruise ship casts all over North America). Back in May when I was worrying over whether to take this job or not, she was unbelievably helpful and patient with me, and I remain quite in her debt.


(Note that this picture was taken in black and white, because it seemed like a very pretentious “Manhattan” thing to do).

We all met up at the cruise ship dock (she was in New York, having just spent a week on a cruise with another cast) and went out for coffee. She asked all about how we were doing on the ship, we told her all about our adventures and shows, and basically answered any questions that we had. She also helped us see that some of the small annoyances we faced on the boat were not, in fact, the worst things in the world (it’s common when these boats are your entire world to blow small things out of proportion).

After a delicious lunch, we all wished Beth a good flight and went our separate ways. Marco and Amanda went to visit the Tenement Museum in the Village (which sounds really cool, it’s basically a recreated 1870’s style New York tenement building). Derek and the girls went shopping, and I went to hang out in Central Park.


I wandered through the park, past the Carousel and a couple of baseball games. I really enjoyed taking pictures of the horse-drawn carriages (especially with the skyscrapers in the background). For me, this is my quintessential “New York” image:


I had planned to do some quick blog writing, so I sat down in a field where there were dozens of people sunbathing. It was here that I made one of my coolest discoveries thus far: that Central Park has completely free, completely FAST wireless internet. It was here that I got a ton of writing and picture uploading done:


That night we did a one-night cruise out of New York harbor (with only one improv show). The next day we headed back out into New York. Once again I went off on my own (that kind of seems to be my thing). I slept in a bit that day, and got out around noon. I only had a couple of hours in the city, but thankfully I had a very specific stop to make. Carly (one of the previous Second City performers, and a friend from Toronto) had told me about certain other places in Manhattan to get free internet, namely the public libraries. I never did get that to quite work, but it did lead me to the Mid-Manhattan library, or as Carly had also gotten excited about, the library from “Ghostbusters”:


“Heh. ‘Get her’.”

They even have the lions out front and everything. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love this movie, so this was a bit of a pilgrimage for me.

After exploring that, I quickly made my way down Broadway Ave. to Midtown Comics, to pick up my newest comic books (my next recommendation, “Avengers Initiative” by Dan Slott). Along the way I stopped to get some better pictures of the Letterman Studio:


And, naturally, Rupert G’s Deli around the corner:


So that night we shipped off for another 6-day cruise, once again to Florida, Nassau, and the private island. This cruise was frankly a bit uneventful, though we did go to the mall in Cape Canaveral and all got to the movie theater to see “Knocked Up”. I really dug it, especially Paul Rudd, and Kristen Wiig’s hilarious cameo (I did, however, prefer “The 40 Year Old Virgin”). They also had this kick-ass display of the Silver Surfer for “Fantastic Four 2”, which I unfortunately hear is not very kick-ass:


That night we did another of our “Best Of” shows, which was well-received (though we once again only got to do one show that week, as opposed to two). I know it sounds strange to complain that we don’t get to do more work in a week, but bear in mind that if I was still in Toronto I would likely be doing about 4 shows a week and not getting paid anything. It’s actually kind of weird for me to be out here, performing so little. But rest is welcome, and it’s best not to look things like this in the mouth I suppose.

Also, free waffles.

After that night’s show we went to the lounge upstairs, “The Galaxy of the Stars”. Seriously, that’s the name. There we hung out with some new friends, which was a blast.


This is Rusty and Andreea, a very cute couple from Alabama and Romania, respectively. Rusty is the technical director for ours and all the other shows on the boat. He is also a very friendly and goofy dude, who does magic. Andreea is one of the Embarkation Clearance Officers on the boat (I have no real idea what that means), but she is also very cool. She hails specifically from the part of Romania that was once Transylvania. Random Etiquette Tip: Do NOT talk to people from Romania about vampires. Not even if you are kidding. They will NOT appreciate it.

Still, very cool chick.


And this is Amanda and Marco hanging out with Lisa, a very cool Australian who works in Guest Services. She’s very sweet, and has a great sense of humour.

The next day we went to Nassau, in the Bahamas. We took a cab over to the beach, which was the first time we got to try out our new snorkel gear. Derek and I immediately started hunting for treasure, while the rest got drinks on the beach. This is Double T, one of the kids who came up to offer us rum drinks from the bar on the beach.


The beach was pretty nice, though the sand was really coarse and got stuck in everything (I know, “bitch bitch bitch...”).


Pretty soon it started raining, though it was still pretty warm and great for swimming.


Everyone wanted to head home though, so we took off pretty quickly. Still, very nice beach.

So that’s another week in the can. I’ll try to get some more stuff up this week, and finally get this blog caught up. Till then, hope everyone’s doing well back in Canada. Cheers!

Week 3: eventually, I'll catch up

Welcome to life on my boat. It’s time to tell you about week 2 now (I promise, I’ll catch up to real-time soon). The end of our first cruise (or “run”, in the biz) saw the departure of Matt, our director. Here we are, taking the requisite “goofy” picture on his last night:


Man, I'm really givin' it to Marco in this picture...

We went out to eat that night, to celebrate. Some of the restaurants on board are free (or rather, included in the cost of the cruise), whereas some cost extra. We went to the Asian one (“Shogun”) which is pretty good, though I’m pretty stoked to try the $15 all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant (umm... also called “Shogun”).

(side note: They have screens all over the ship which show how busy each restaurant is at any given time. For example, the steakhouse, “Cagney’s” seems to be very popular with the American tourist crowd. The sushi restaurant is always, without fail, completely empty).

So the next day we said goodbye to Matt, and set out for our first afternoon of adventure in New York City!


Marco and Amanda went to visit an old friend (Marco used to live in New York), whereas Derek wanted to find a Best Buy (bit of a DVD-buying nut). The girls went with him, and I set off by myself to explore before meeting with my buddy Robert. We met up at a brunch place he recommended at 9th and 56th St., called Route 66. They had a Sicilian Omelet (full of mozzarella, onions, and sausage), which is officially the best omelet I’ve ever eaten. Here’s Robert:


And here’s Robert in Times Square:


We spent most of the rest of the afternoon bumming around, taking in the sights in mid-town. I got lots of pictures of Times Square, including this one of me grooving to some salsa band that was playing on a street corner:


Downtown was pretty crazy that day, since it was Puerto Rican Day. We couldn’t quite get over to see the parade, but people were everywhere. Now that I think about it, it’s kind of weird calling one part of Manhattan “downtown”, since the whole thing is effectively downtown. I just love walking around and staring up at the buildings for miles. I really can’t wait to do the tour on the Empire State Building, and check out the Village. For the time being, I settled for going to Mid-Town comics and stocking up for the week. If anyone’s interested, I picked up issue 4 of Joss Whedon’s new “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series, and a book called “Y the Last Man” and another called “Pride of Baghdad”, both by Brian K. Vaughan (all 3 of which I highly recommend). After that I headed back to the ship, signed back in, called my folks, and got ready to do the whole thing all over again.

Monday saw our first day on our own as a cast, and our first day to really relax on our own. And my first day to go to the gym since... ever. They have a pretty good gym on board (as far as I know) and I’ve been hitting it every day since then. Almost. In that time I have learned one thing: I am terribly, terribly out of shape.

Our next stop on our exotic whirlwind adventure to far-off lands brought us all the way to... Port Canaveral, Florida. Woo. Actually, we were all pretty stoked to get there. Among the few things to check out, like Disneyworld or the Kennedy Space Center was a sight that we were all thankful to see: a mall. A Wal-Mart, to be specific. Most of the crew heads in to the mall during these 6 day trips, and we took the opportunity to go in to town and stock up on all the stuff we forgot to pack. I’ll spare you having to look through pictures of our Wal-Mart excursion (here’s a hint: it looks a lot like the Wal-Mart near your house). But I did get this picture of my “Big Bacon Bison Burger” I had at Ruby Tuesday’s. These Americans know how to cook their bison!


Once I picked up all the sun screen and coca-cola I could carry (along with a DVD copy of the 1987 John Candy/ Dan Aykroyd vehicle “The Great Outdoors”, which I hadn’t seen in about 13 years) we shipped out to sea again. That night we had another “Best Of Second City” show, and it went well. We only did one show this week as opposed to two, which kind of sucked, but I can think of worse things than only having to do half as much work in a week for the same amount of pay.

The next morning we woke up in Nassau, in the Bahamas. After mistakenly attending a crew-only boat drill and then going to a crew meeting, we set off to explore a bit of our surroundings.


This pretty much included a small row of tourist stalls, and a Starbucks. We went to the Starbucks, which kind of sucked. It took 15 minutes to get our drinks, the wireless internet they had wouldn’t work with macs, and Katy was quite creeped out by all the cockroaches running around our feet. So the Nassau Starbucks gets zero stars in the “Ian Travel Guide”. I did see a guy selling nifty conk shells though:


For fifteen bucks, I dunno. I can always buy one on a later trip. On the way back to the boat (we grew tired of the Bahamas quite quickly) I took some pictures of the Atlantis resort hotel.


Luxury suites go for $25,000/ night, and you can see the building in “Casino Royale”, when James Bond lands there in a helicopter.

Speaking of “Casino Royale”, they have been playing an ‘edited-for-content’ version of it repeatedly on the ship’s TV. Each cabin has a TV set, and gets about 6 channels: ESPN, Cartoon Network, TNT, CNN, and two channels of recent-run movies that the boat airs ad naseum. Over the past few weeks we’ve seen various lengths of Pursuit of Happyness, MI:3, the Da Vinci Code, Failure to Launch, Superman Returns, Erin Brockovich, and (shudder) Because I Said So. Thank God we collectively packed about 70 movies as a group.

That night we took a short jaunt to and island called Grand Stirrup Kay, which is a private island owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines. Warning: this is a lot less cool than it sounds. The island basically contains one beach, with a few little drink huts, some beach volleyball nets, and a tourist shop. Oh, and according to several sources, a shitload of sand fleas. It isn’t large enough for the cruise ship to dock on, so we have to take smaller “tender boats” to get to the beach.


Once there, I hung out, grabbed a drink, and chilled out in a hammock. It was nice and relaxing, in spite of the mob of drunk partying tourists on the beach. Ooh, and I think I saw a monkey! But it was pretty dark, and I’m not quite sure what ran across the path in front of me. After my near-primate encounter, I did the only other thing to do on the island: take pictures of American tourists dancing the Electric Slide:


The rest of the week went pretty quickly. We did two more “Scriptless” shows, which the crowd really enjoyed. Another night was Hazel’s birthday (one of the singers from the Broadway show). It was a good time, though I learned that you can’t set beer down unattended on this boat for more than a second. Ever.


The boat also celebrated Philippine Independence Day, which was awesome. Over 40% of the ship’s crew is from the Philippines, so they put on an enormously elaborate pageant, complete with dancing, songs, and free beer! There were candle dances, as well as lots of history (did you know that the Philippines gained their independence from Spain? I didn’t either). I can honestly say, that show was the coolest thing I’ve seen on this boat thus far. I wish I'd gotten some pictures, but I left my camera in my room. Hopefully I'll come across ome later.

So that’s it for this week. Next week, I’ll try to bring things up to date. Till then, keep writing and telling me about what’s been going on back home. Later!

Week Two Continued... the Rest of Week Two

Avast! Ian here, continuing the story of my sea-based adventures. I’m kind of behind in my recounting, so I’m going to pick up the pace this week, and tell you all about our first week at sea. Don't forget, you can click on all these pictures to see larger versions).

I told you all about the ship, and our first night. Well, after leaving New York we set sail south, towards the Caribbean. Except we didn’t really take much in, given that we had two shows to rehearse for in a matter of days. By the time we got on the ship we were looking pretty good, given that most of us (myself included) had shown up in Chicago with our lines memorized and ready to go. We each only had two scripted scenes to get down, with a handful of short blackouts as well. Our first rehearsal on the ship was in the large Stardust Theatre, and we worked for a bout 6 hours straight. After rehearsal we had a nice 5-course dinner at one of the shipboard restaurants, Windows. It has enormous 2-storey windows that look out the aft of the ship.


The crazy part about this cruise is that it’s all-inclusive (minus booze), so you don’t actually pay to eat in these restaurants. There are several others onboard, a steakhouse, a sushi bar, a French bistro and such. After that we explored around some more, and Derek and I discovered the decorative captain’s wheel that they have set up (presumably, so that tourists like us can take pictures like this).




Our first stop on the cruise was in King’s Warf, Bermuda. As you can see, it’s quite the beautiful port with a rich, British military history.




And I celebrated by... staying on board the ship all day. Our crazy schedule up to that point had finally caught up to me, so while everyone else was exploring off-ship, I slept in, swa and the largely tourist-free pool, and relaxed in the hot tub. Meh, we’ll be back. That afternoon though, our travels took us straight into the mysterious Bermuda Triangle. The sea was clear when we left port, but literally as soon as we got out to sea we encountered this fog:


No ghost pirates though. Sorry Kris.

The first show that we checked out on the cruise was “Standing Room Only”, a Broadway Musical Revue show put on by the Spirit’s resident dance company. The show was very well done, though there’s only so much old-timey Broadway and Andrew Lloyd Webber that I can take. The night after that though... wow. Has anyone reading this ever heard of Jeff Trachta? He was billed as a “celebrity entertainer” on the ship, and was flown in all the way from Las Vegas. He did a one-man show, and we caught the late one. The show opened with a video montage of various TV personalities, all talking about Jeff Trachta. Except all the TV clips were from about 1991. The job of the video was basically to remind people, “hey, even though you don’t remember him, this guy used to be kind of famous”. Apparently he was on the soap opera “Bold and the Beautiful” playing a character named “Thorne”. After the video montage, Trachta’s live show began. In it he sang, danced, and did random impressions, all while being accompanied by a video screen where he would play different characters singing backup for himself (all pre-recorded). I will say this, he did one of the best Archie and Edith Bunker impersonations I’ve ever heard. Other than that, his show as one of the cheesiest, silliest, cruise-shippiest things I’ve ever witnessed in my life. But the closer...

Earlier in the week, Derek was joking about how we should end our Second City show with a rousing rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American”, in an effort to appeal to a more “American Tourist friendly” cruise ship market. His version would be complete with waving flags, shotgun blasts, and a laser bald-eagle which would screech over our heads. We joked about this for a while, and forgot about it. But lo and behold... Jeff Trachta’s show ended with that exact song. We nearly all burst out laughing in the middle of the theater. But Derek had skipped the show to do laundry. Here’s a picture of us, all crowded into mine and Derek’s room, excitedly telling him about what he had missed:


The next day was spent at sea, but more importantly was spent in our final rehearsals for our show. We worked on a new bit for the show that we all contributed to, based on Amanda’s prior experience working on cruise ships. Amanda played an overly cheerful cruise ship staffer, and she led our tourists in the “electric slide”, and various other dances. Go satire! The bit fit nicely in the show, and we went into our first two shows feeling well-prepared. Here’s a picture of us backstage, about to go on:


Damn, I look good in a suit. I mean, we all look good. But mostly me.

I won’t bore you all with the details, but the first show went well and the second show went great. We had huge crowds for both shows, and got some really good notes from Matt between sets. After the show we all got changed, and headed upstairs for a crew party that was going on. At first I thought it was a nice gesture for them to have a party on our opening night, but then I found out it was completely unrelated. Ah well, free booze is free booze. We also met some of the dancers and singers.


The girl on the left is Hazel, a really sweet girl from London, England who has absolutely no attention span. She will literally approach you to talk, and then zone out and walk away when you are mid-sentence (as Derek and I have repeatedly experienced). The girl on the right is Dayna, a really cool and friendly chick from the mid-west. Her and I chatted about theatre schools for a while, but we were all eventually drowned out by the unbelievably loud music that was playing. Nice folks though.

The next day we docked in Tortola (one of the British Virgin Islands), and all set out on a post-opening beach trip. We grabbed a cab in the town, and were driven across the island (only about 15 minutes, but over an entire mountain). This is the town we docked in (you can see that we’re heading up the mountain in the picture):


And this is a shot of the beach were taken to:


We hung out for a while, and were eventually joined by Matt:


This is my sexy beach picture. I’m thinking of writing a series of Harlequin Romance novels, and using this as the first cover:


The beach was absolutely the most beautiful one I had ever been to in my life. The water was crystal clear, as warm as bathwater, and the beach wasn’t at all crowded. We ended up chatting with a 2 couples from the boat who were part of a Long Island firefighter’s group trip. They really enjoyed the show the night before, and were quite friendly. And had cool, “Loong Ih-lund” accents.

Here’s a picture I took of Derek, where you can’t see any houses and it looks like he’s on “LOST”:


We’re both fans. Soon we left the beach, and got another ride back. This one though was more of a truck with benches in the back, so we drove all the way up a hill with no seatbealts, practically hanging out the back of the jeep. Later, I wrote some e-mails on the top deck and watched a beautiful Tortola sunset.


The next morning, we woke up in beautiful St. Thomas, one of the US Virgin Islands. I know I sound like a braggy-asshole, but this is the view I had while I ate my breakfast waffles that morning:


(Don’t worry, karma bit me in the ass by giving me a massive sunburn from the beach. Its 11 days later and my shoulders are STILL peeling.)

Here are some pictures of the town we landed in. We had all gotten our fill of sun the previous day, so we took in some shops instead:




Here are some really cool birds that we saw. In the upper left corner you can see one dive-bombing into the water to catch fish:


We were also quite impressed by the St. Thomas Wendy’s. We didn’t go that day – don’t want to burn out all the tourist attractions at once:


Another cool thing we saw was a cute girl standing on the sidewalk, handing out free rum-based ice drinks. After that I went to apply for citizenship.


We also went into a cool pirate museum, where they had a bunch of old authentic sword and marine stuff. Except it wasn’t a museum and was actually a store. So they kicked me out for taking pictures.




After walking the town for a while and buying very little, we took a cab back to the ship. This is a weird picture of Michelle and Katy from that trip. I’m not sure why I’m including it.



That night we all took it easy, and had a cast night in. Luckily the previous Second City cast aboard the Norwegian Spirit (including Carly Jones and Darryl Hinds, two very cool people from Toronto, and Homer Marrs, an absolute prince of a man) had left behind several board games. Including Trivial Pursuit, 80’s Edition.


The game started well. Except for two facts that we had not counted on. A) Marco was a teenager during the 80’s, and thusly remembers the 80's, and b) the game is rigged. Seriously, Matt and I were on a team, and kept getting incredibly hard questions about forgotten TV series and the inner workings of the Iran-Contra scandal. Team Amanda and Derek would get questions like “Name this Michael Jackson song title: Billie Jean is ___ my Lover”.


(okay, maybe their questions weren’t that easy. But as Matt’s picture can attest, it felt that way)

After that night we spent another day at sea, and did our first two “Scriptless” improv shows, which went great. The crowds loved them, and we were quite pleased with ourselves. And that brings me to the end of this blog entry. Holy shit, that was a long entry. I’ll try to cover less ground next time. Until then, have fun on the mainland.



ps. Go back to my previous posts to see new pictures that I added. Cheers!

Week Two: The Big Apple

When last we left our hero, he was winging away from the beautiful town of Chicago. Our time rehearsing at the Second City had come to a close, and it was time to fly to New York City and find our boat. Our flight out of Chicago was at 6:45 in the morning, which was kind of ass. But we got up and made our way out to the airport, thanks to the good people at the Airport Hilton shuttle service (“herding groggy travelers, no matter how ungodly the hour”). In spite of me not realizing that I was trying to check into the wrong airline, I soon made my flight and was off to New York. I was booked into a different airline than the rest of our cast (my ticket was evidently booked last) so I spent the flight listening to the new Wilco album (“Sky Blue Sky”) and dozing. Both activities which were highly enjoyable. We all touched down in LaGuardia airport, got ourselves together, and hopped another van to downtown Manhattan, where waited the docks, the ship, and our destinies. Mostly just the ship.

The entire time driving through Manhattan, I had a huge stupid grin on my face. It is no stretch to say that I’ve wanted to visit New York ever since I was a small child, and this was the first time I’d ever been there. I kept staring up at buildings for miles and miles, and wished I could just tuck-and-roll out of the van and live there (my plan was later revealed to be deeply flawed).



There’s a spot in downtown Toronto, near Bay and Front St, where if you look up at a certain angle, the buildings block out all the sky around the area, and it looks like you could be in downtown New York. That experience in Toronto is now ruined for me.

We drove for about 30 minutes (NYC isn’t the greatest driving town, as I’m sure you’re aware). And then, we saw it: our floating home away from home for the next few months. The ship is called the Norwegian Spirit, part of the Norwegian Cruise Lines fleet. The thing is, to say it plainly, stupidly large. Like, hilariously large.



The first thing I did once we were out of the cab was get a picture taken with some genuine New York Police Officers. I am an enormous dork. The cops both had these awesome, thick, “extras from Spider-Man 3” accents, and it wasn’t until I was halfway done talking to them that I realized I was subconsciously imitating them. It’s a weird (and potentially dangerous) habit that I have.



The next few hours were taken up with us getting on the ship, getting our key cards, dropping our luggage off, all that usual stuff. I’m currently sharing a cabin with Derek, which is pretty alright since we brought about 50 DVD’s between us. The room is nice, but pretty tiny (considering that there’s 2 dudes in it). We also don’t have a window, since we’re on the inside of the ship. It’s completely pitch-dark when the lights are out, which will be great for sleeping off hangovers, but bad for waking up before noon.



We were some of the first people on the ship, so we took advantage and went to the buffet before anyone else. The main buffet is a restaurant called Raffles (dunno why), and the food was pretty good. Lots of fresh Caesar Salad, Chicken Masala, and some kind of delicious chilled banana soup. And all of it free! FREE! Being free made it taste like, 10 times better. After that, the ship set sail out of the harbour, past the Statue of Liberty. So I made like a good tourist and took a bunch of pictures.







Later that day we attended a mandatory safety lecture down in the crew section. We had to wait about half an hour for it to start, and I kind of fell asleep and drooled on my desk. But they showed us around the ship, demonstrating the water-tight flood doors, the free condoms in the doctor’s office, and the water cannon which has supposedly been used to repel Asian pirates. I’ll believe that when we’re boarded. And now the spiffy part: we got to leave the safety lecture early. See, the weird part of being on this ship as Second City cast is we’re not really crew, but not really passengers. We exist in this weird grey area in the middle, where we get almost all the privileges of passengers PLUS all the extra perks of being crew, with almost none of the drawbacks (not unlike Wesley Snipes’ half-human/ half-vampire character in “Blade”). As a result I’m told that many of the crew and other performers resent us, but I can honestly say I haven’t experienced any of that thus far (though for the record, I am also incredibly naïve).

The next thing on our exploration was to check out the theatres we’ll be performing in. There are two: The Stardust Theatre (where we do our 50 minute “Best Of” scripted show), and the Galaxy of the Stars (where we do our 30 minute “Scriptless” improv show). Yes, I am aware that those names are pretty ridiculous. The Stardust is apparently a 100-seat theatre, where we have to wear wireless headset mikes in order to be heard at all. The stage is ENOURMOUS, and we barely use any of it. The Improvised show we do is in more of a bar/ lounge, and we use handheld mikes, which is pretty lame, but better than nothing.



So the first night and next day were pretty uneventful. We ate more free food, the coffee onboard is terrible, we rehearsed for 6 hours the next day, and we had a nice sit down dinner the next night in one of the ship’s nicer restaurants, Windows. It’s at the back of the ship (or “stern”, in nautical terms), and has enormous 2-storey windows that look out on the ocean. This was one of our first meals where we weren’t on a time schedule, so we took this time to get to know each other. I mentioned in my last entry that I would talk about our director, Matt Hovde. He is the director of the current Mainstage revue at the Second City Chicago, “Between Barack and a Hard Place”. We saw it in Chicago, and I think it’s an excellent show. Really smart, topical material, with some great human scenes. So we knew we were in good hands. Matt is from... somewhere American... and went to College at a Christian School in Texas (in spite of his not being particularly religious). At dinner he told us the story about his first day in Chicago. It’s a long and nifty story, but it pretty much involves Matt coming to Chicago knowing nobody, and (through a series of flukes) by the end of his first day having drinks with the entire Second City Mainstage cast (including director Mick Napier, Rachel Dratch, and Tina Fey). Some more fun facts about Matt:

- Another big video game fan.
- Has (supposedly) never drank or smoked anything in his life.
- Has a black belt in karate.
- In high school, he compiled an inventoried video-tape collection of every episode of the British “Whose Line Is It Anyway”.
- Apparently drunk American tourists think he and I look interchangeable.
- Enjoys ice cream.
- He’s a funny, really nice cat.



So as you’ve probably noticed, I’m kind of pacing myself on this blog. This entry only takes us up to June 3rd, in spite of the fact that I’m writing it 6 days later. I figure if I write everything all at once, I’ll have nothing to talk about once we’re hitting the same ports every week. So stay tuned friends and Mom: next week, I shall regale you with sea-tales of our first shows, our first port stops, and my massive, massive sunburn. G’night!

Back in Business, Baby!

Hey everybody! Long time no see. I figure the easiest way to keep in contact with everyone while I've shipped off to sea is to start the blog back up. Yup, for the next 2 months, this will be the best place for Ian-related information. As you may know, I just accepted a job with the Second City, performing for 2 months aboard a 'Norwegian Cruise Lines' cruise ship. This past Tuesday, I left town, but not before I had a late breakfast with some friends at Fran's 24-hour diner.


As usual, I showed up about an hour late. Brandy, JimKim, PK, and Kyra were there, to enjoy pancakes and good times. Good relaxing quiet times. Namely since the night before was spent at the Willow bar, drinking our faces off after a Bad Dog show. I have cool friends (especially considering how JimKim burned the entire 1st season of "Heroes" for me to watch on the boat).

So the first part of my fantastic voyage brought me to Pearson Airport, where I met up with Marco Timpano and Amanda Barker, my fellow Canadian shipmates.


Fun facts about Amanda and Marco:

- The three of us worked together several years ago in the improvised dinner-theatre show ‘Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding’.
- Amanda is a fellow East-Coaster (kind of) from New Brunswick.
- I went to Dalhousie and was friends with her brother Garrett Barker (we discovered this years later).
- Amanda is also in the Second City Toronto Touring Company.
- Marco is a very cool guy who has been improvising for years in Toronto; we’ve also taken classes together in the past.
- Marco and Amanda are dating. Awwww...

I immediately marveled at how much luggage Marco and Amanda packed. Granted, they’ll be on the boat for 4 months (whereas I’m only doing 2). But seriously, they packed like 3 big bags each. I immediately began to assume that I had forgotten to pack important things (turns out I did). We got our stuff together, and went through immigration without a hitch. Upon arriving in the terminal, one of the ladies who drives the motorized carts must not have been very busy, because she offered to drive us to our gate. Her name was Sumira, and she was very nice. We got her to drive us a bit farther, to Tim Hortons. Our flight was delayed an hour, so we hung out, got coffee (Amanda and Marco got their last Tim Hortons for 4 months), ran lines, and gossiped about Second City (which is the main Second City performer pastime).

A couple of hours later, we were in the air on our way to the Windy City. We arrived about 9:30, got into the city, and took a work-subsidized taxi to our hotel. It was a fairly nice Best Western, but it was paid for by work, so I was ecstatic (frankly, I would have been satisfied with a teepee in the middle of the park). We looked around for some authentic Chicago cuisine, but then just gave up and ate McDonald’s (it was getting late). The next morning we got a cab to Second City, and were brought into the Mainstage theatre. For the following 3 days, we would get to rehearse on the Mainstage. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked about this. While poking around backstage we soon met our fellow performers. The first was Michelle Miracle, who flew out from Los Angeles. Some fun facts about Michelle:

- That is her real last name.
- She also does stand-up.
- She was an understudy for the short-lived Denver Second City, which was apparently quite the hotbed of talent.
- She does not eat pork.

The next fellow we met was Derek Shipman, from Tennessee (by way of the Las Vegas Second City “Scriptless” improv show). More fun facts:

- Derek is very funny.
- He has a cool, but subtle, Southern Accent.
- He really digs pirate movies, and pirates in general.
- He is about as big a Buffy nerd as I am.
- He doesn’t drink.


This is Derek and Michelle.

And last but not least, we met our musical director, Katy Marquardt:

- Katy is from Indiana, but now lives in Chicago.
- She enjoys musical theater.
- Apparently, her high school had the kick-assest drama program ever.
- She enjoys video games.
- She is a vegetarian, but doesn’t like to bother people about it.


So that’s our cast. We all met up in the theatre, and were quickly introduced to our director, Matt Hovde. Some fun... ah, I’m tired of this joke for now. I’ll tell you more about Matt later (though I will say that he’s a pretty cool guy). We began rehearsals right away, since we had a lot to get through (a whole 55-minute show to rehearse, and lots of improv games to get on the same page with). Matt gave us our full scripts (we only received part of them ahead of time, which I actually had memorized. Go Ian!). We had about 5 scenes, some short “blackout” scenes, and a few improv games (4-Square, Conducted Story, and Debate, for those in the know). The next few days of rehearsal FLEW by, and were honestly some of the most fun I’ve ever had working and performing. The whole experience was like a compressed Second City experience – kind of a “Second City Fantasy Camp”.

But that wasn’t all! We also had some cool side adventures in Chicago. Wednesday night, Michelle and I took a cab up to the Annoyance Theater, and very cool little improv/ comedy theatre in Chicago. It’s kind of like the Bad Dog Theatre in Toronto, except a bit bigger, and with booze. Very cool vibe, though.


It was started by (among other people) a very cool improviser and director named Mick Napier. I recently spent some time hanging out with Mick in Toronto for, uh... reasons I’m not really allowed to discuss yet. But I ran into him there, which was cool. Michelle and I saw a sketch show called “Competing Elderly British Detectives” which kicked ass. Very nerdy, reference-heavy, and tight comedy. Peters, you guys would have LOVED this show. One of the performers in the show (Brendan) was a friend of Michelle’s from Denver who is currently understudying for the Chicago Mainstage, so we hung out with him and his wife Beth (also a Second City performer). They recently returned from working on one of these cruises, so they gave us lots of advice. And a ride back to the hotel. Nicest people ever.
The next night Michelle, Marco, Amanda, and our stage manager Kyle (who was only with us in Chicago) went to see the Second City Mainstage Show, “Between Barack and a Hard Place”. Incidentally our director, Matt Hovde, also directed the Mainstage show. “Barack” was excellent, definitely one of the better SC shows I’ve ever seen. Obviously the show contains a lot of material about Barack Obama, and that night there were over 200 staffers from Obama’s campaign headquarters in the audience. Anytime someone mentioned Barack, they went ape-shit (it felt like a BizCo show, for those who know what I’m talking about). But the coolest part was yet to come... After the Mainstage show, one of the actors, Amber Ruffin, came out to our table and, knowing Michelle from Denver and knowing that we were Second City performers, invited us to do the improv set with them. I can honestly say, without hyperbole, that this was (thus far) one of the highpoints of my year. Maybe more. Who knows? We did a “Commando” set (lots of short scenes), and I ended up in a few scenes that I liked. It definitely wasn’t my finest work, but I had a blast, and got to share a stage with Brian Gallivan, which was really a treat (Mom, you may remember him as the guy from the ‘Gay Shakespeare’ scenes in the “Red Scare” show we saw a few years back). Marco, Amanda, and Michelle were equally as stoked, and we basically talked about it for days. So that was the high point thus far.



This is us backstage. Also pictured hanging out and drinking: Mick Napier. Again.

That seems like as good a point as any to finish off for now. In the next blog, I’ll tell you all about flying to New York, getting on the ship, and my epic battle with pirates! Cheers all.

(note: This blog will have more pictures later. The ship's satellite is being weird. Stupid Bermuda Triangle...)

And Now, A Picture

Hey kids, just trying something out here. Check out the pictures from my (afore-mentioned) Aug. 2nd show. Later.

Additional Picture Fun!

Hey everyone, you know that old chestnut about pictures being worth a thousand words? Well, apparently when that phrase was coined centuries ago, they had blogs and camera phones specifically in mind. Pretty good foresight, if you ask me. So I've decided to continue the format that I set up last month, and let my Nokia do the talking...

To start off, I've got some pictures from karaoke last month. I had just returned from a... disappointing, Approximately 3 Peters show (Rob Bartlett, Bad Dog technician extraordinaire, describerd it as "the worst set I've ever seen you guys do"). But then I met up with friends from work, and we had some musical fun. First off is our Second City bartender PK (Paul Kingston) rocking the Darkness' "I Believe In A Thing Called Love":


Next up is Fraser "the other guy in the Subway commercial" Young doing a number on the Chili Pepper's "Under The Bridge". I was bugging him all night to sing, and he kept insisting that it wasn't his thing. I kind of see why now. But as we all know, "karaoke" is Japanese for "public humiliation":


Speaking of, I still have not seen the Subway commercial in question. A shiny nickel to the person who manages to tape it for me. As for karaoke, rest assured that I was not idle. I sang a strirring duet of Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure" with my director friend Kate (myself singing the Bowie part); and performed a surprisingly capable version of "Get Rhythm" by the late Mr. Cash.

Next up I went to a birthday party for my friend and fellow improviser Lindsay. It was held at a friend's place, and I was quite excited to discover that he is a fellow Halifax ex-pat. He also has exactly the type of apartment decor that I want to have when I grow up. Here's a (pretty blurry) pic of said birthday girl and said decor:


Some other cool news: I shot another commercial! It's for The Source (by Circuit City), and it will be my first paying gig as a full ACTRA member. I still think ACTRA is a bunch of crooks, but now I'm one of the crooks. Anyways, I took some cool snaps on the set, so here goes:


This is James, my costar (and fictional co-employee). Very cool guy. Within 5 minutes of being on set and meeting, we determined that James used to be in a sketch group named "Someone and the Somethings" a) with my old roomate Thomas Middleditch, b) with my current roomate Andrew Bush, and c) was hanging out in my apartment unbeknowenst to me as recently as the previous week. Small friggin' world, eh?


This is my other costar, Kim. And by "costar", I mean the girl I was paid to make out with for 6 straight hours. She was very cool, and regaled us with stories of the violent shooting at the downtown night club where she bartends, just days previous. Gotta love Toronto.


The French Me! They shot two versions of the commercial, one to air across Canada, and one with Francophone actors to air in Quebec only. So instead of doing two nights of shooting (we were in a Source store overnight) they did all the lighting set-ups and shot the commercial with us, and then shot it again, en francais. So apparently if I have a french doppleganger (or bizarro double) it'll look like this guy.


This sign made me laugh. Not sure why.

Oh, and last week I performed my final show of the Bad Dog Theatre's Lord of the Things. *sniff*. I did however live out my dream of playing a different character from the Dark Lord. Yes, I was Legoland, of the Elves. I sang 3 "Elven Lamentations", including "Every Rose Has It's Thorn", and "Candle In The Wind". Below is photographic proof of me in an elf costume standing next to an unusually beefy-looking Brad Sayeau. Note: Brad is not actually this large, it's some kind of trick of the light.


Next up, the big news was the arrival in Toronto of Mr.Shawn Maggio, and Lt. Dan Hennigar.


Shawn (above)


Dan (above)

They were here on vacation, and right off the bat last Sunday we trekked (bright and early) out to Paramount Canada's Wonderland, for a day of fun and (expensive) adventure.


Rounding out the group was Tim and Debi, Dan's brother and friends of ours (pictured below). Tim and Debi live in the city, and even though I should do so we never hang out. That's gonna change though. Mainly because Tim has an Xbox 360.


The day was an absolute blast, and we rode the hell out of the rides from 10am all the way past 10pm. Tim has a bit of a thing about heights, but it actually worked out great. The 4 of us would go on a ride, and he'd nerd out taking pictures of us with his super-high end digital camera. He knocked the hell out of some little kids on the bumper cars though.


Oh, and here's Scooby Doo.


In other news, Toronto has been struck in the grip of another ridiculous heat wave recently. Our air conditioner in the living room has been working overtime. Here is a sample of the liquid (I hesitate to say water) that I removed from it the other day.


Makes ya think, hm?

Of course this heat and humidity also leads to freak rainstorms of biblical proportions. Take for instance this deluge, which lasted for about 3 minutes:



Or this picture (courtesy of the Toronto Star) of an amazing lighting storm the other night.


Yep, that storm sure was amazing. Except I missed it, becasue I was inside doing a show.

(Oh shit, you guys have to read this article also from the Toronto Star. Rest assured, I'm e-mailing it to the Colbert Report as we speak).

Speaking of, hey, I did a show last week. It was Approximately 3 Peters performing with PunchDRYSDALE, a very funny group from here in Toronto. Here's a great picture my good friend Andrew Currie snapped, and a link to where you can find more.


Speaking of shows, we had our first longform improv show last night after our big 5-week intensive. The show was called "Dead Tanson's Dreambox presents: FORMATIONS" (I was not present when we decided on the name), and it went smashingly. Everyone in the class was on their game and hilarious. I myself was in scenes that included: me playing a beer-themed superhero who longed to be an event planner; myself and Onai playing enthusiastic sweatshop employees; and an estranged father and son who reconciled over the Village People's "YMCA". Good times.

Finally, I leave you all with quite possibly the high point of my week (month? year?). Yesterday Shawn and Dan were quite intent on purchasing some comic-book themed t-shirts. Having been disappointed by the selection and sizing at most comic stores (plenty of XXL shirts, if you catch my drift) we were about to give up hope. But next door to our final stop, we stumbled upon a little gem of a store called Honest Canuck Customs, which makes custom t-shirts. We spent some time looking over their t-shirt designs, the general crude and ironic t-shirt fare. It wasn't until Debi inquired about different designs however that we discovered you could find images on the internet and design your own shirts!!!!!

Fuck yes!

Finally, I was able to realize my dream of owning a Scott Pilgrim t-shirt. It was so amazing, that Shawn purchased an identical one. Check this shit out!



Best $24 ever spent.

Later kids.

You Too Can Be A Film Critic! It's Easy And Fun!

Hey everyone, I just got back tonight from the preview screening of Clerks 2, Kevin Smith's sequel to his 1994 indie-slacker classic. Those of you who know me well (ie. the only people who read this blog) know that since I saw Clerks in my sophmore year of high school, it has been my favourite film (or one of them. I still gots a soft spot for the '89 Batman). I freely admit that Clerks is not a perfect film. In some respects, it's entirely amatuerish and poorly filmed. But that's not why I love it. I love that movie for it's unpretentiousness; for the way that it values dialogue, wit, and (above all) ideas over fancy shots and big-time stars. It's a movie that genuinely has somthing to say about everyday life, and Smith felt so strongly about this that he made the whole thing himself with maxed-out credit cards. Ultimately, I love it becasue it represents a kind of democracy that popular film, up to that point, had never really seen.

So when I recieved a free pass yesterday to tonight's preview screening (courtesy of Sean "the Wordburglar" Jordan and the Silver Snail), I was quite excited. So in the interest of combining my two favourite passtimes (writing and forcing my opinions on others), here is my impromptu review of Clerks 2:

CLERKS 2
dir. Kevin Smith
2006


Sequels suck. That's the rule. Inevitably they come off as a pale imitation of the first movie; a cash in comprising reheated jokes and arbitrary conflict designed to spur the characters into one more wacky adventure. Search your hearts: you know this to be true. Sure, good sequels do exist. Spider-Man 2, Empire, Godfather II. But these are all exceptions - movies that defied the rules of sequels and managed to tell fully satisfying and original stories, while both retaining and expanding upon what made the original great.

Hopefully you see where I'm going with this.

Clerks 2 picks up 10 years after the original. Our slacker-heroes Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randall (Jeff Anderson) have given up their mindless convenience store jobs - but only after the store burns down. Worse, they've traded the Quick Stop for a fast food restaurant, surely one step lower on the retail/ evolutionary scale. They're still beset by idiot customers, still trade pop-cultural jabs and philosophy, and they still spend most of their efforts sorting out Dante's love life. Except for one big differenece: they're 33. Which makes all of the above quite sad. You see, one of the advantages Smith has over most sequels is that a significant amount of time has passed since the first film. This allows him to show actual growth and change in his leads - or more accurately, examine what happens when there is no growth. Clerks 2 is all about missed opportunities. About what happens when you never quite do seize a hold of your life, when you don't ever get around to chasing your dreams.

You wouldn't think Smith, being a successful multi-millionaire film maker with a rabid fanbase would have a whole lot of perspective on this topic, but look closer at his career. Back in the 90's he was the next indie-movie-wunderkid. He had more press written on him by age 26 than most artists get in a lifetime, all heralding him as the next Altman or De Palma. 10 years later though, and Smith is still making more or less the types of movies he was when he started out: irreverent, foul-mouthed, buddy films with little to no visual style. He's never become the director that people said he should become. Hence, the central conceit of Clerks 2. At first the story appears to concern Dante's dilemma over which girl to choose: Emma (Jennifer Schwallbach), the controlling daddy's girl who wants him to restart his life with her in Florida; and Becky (Rosario Dawson), the cool, sexy, girl-next-door who truly 'understands' him. If this all seems to be preachy "follow your heart" crap, that's because it's meant to be. The real theme of the movie runs under the surface the whole way through, and only comes to bear in the 3rd act: just what "following your dreams" actually means. And this is where Smith pulls it all together. He not only crafts a satisfying sequel to his first story, but gives his characters a truly earned happy ending.

As for the usual Smith-isms, they're all here. The dialogue is as crude as the American "R" rating will legally allow (and that's not even mentioning the film's climax, which I'll only say involves a particularly "talented" donkey). Returning of course are Jay and Silent Bob, the drug-dealing duo who haunt the periphery of all of Smith's films, commenting on the action and providing comic relief. Smith's usual wit is also on display here, though he keeps the usual callbacks to his previous films (I would say thankfully) absent. Unfortunately, all of his bad habits have come along as well. Smith's sentimental streak runs rampant through through this film, though I'll take earnest sentimentality over the fake Hollywood kind any day. Also, though Smith has perfected the art of the pop-music movie montage, he pushes the boundary with not one, not two, but FOUR montages throughout the film. Oh, and Schwallbach is terribly one-note as Emma, though this can be explained by the fact that she is a) not an actress, and b) Kevin Smith's wife. Understandably, she also gets the least screentime. At one point she sports a t-shirt reading "Mrs. Dante Hicks" though it may as well have read "Mrs. Plot Device".

Thankfully, the rest of the cast performs admirably. O'Halloran brings genuine wit and depth to Dante's dilemma, and Anderson retains Randal's effortless biting sarcasm while discovering (shockingly) real heart. Dawson continues a string of star-making perfomances here, as she creates perhaps the most fully-realized of Smith's leading ladies. You can genuinely see why Dante falls for her (and frankly, when she performs an impromptu dance on the roof of the store to the Jackson 5's "ABC 123", I was right there with him).

So yeah, this is again not a perfect movie, but I would guess that it has accompished exactly what Smith set out to do. It's fucking hilarious, does justice to the original, and wears its opinions about success and happiness proudly on it's sleeve. Besides, when's the last time you went to the local multiplex and heard the line "mayonnaise in my cooch"?

**** out of 5

ps. I'm leaving you all with one of the unused promotional posters for the film. I'm sure you can understand why. Cheers.

My June, In (Grainy, Low-Res) Pictures

Hey everyone. I realize that traffic on this blog has slowed to a virtual crawl. I blame the fact that I've been genuinely busy for the past month or so, coupled with my earlier reluctance to post when I'm in a bad or depressed mood. So that ruled out June. But I'm back, and determined to fill you in, my friends, family, and blogging audience, on the past 49 days. Plus, digital-camera-phone fun!

First off, my temp data-entry job at KPMG turned out to be much more temporary than even I suspected. It finished abruptly, so I no longer had an excuse to rub elbows with the powerful, hyper-tense, Type-A personalities down at BCE Place. Spiffy lobby though.


So I was back out on my own, forging for myself. Never an exciting prospect. Add to that an unseasonal heatwave (plus a roommate who constantly reminded me of said heatwave) and it was not a fun week. As you can see, Scott's cat Sketchy took to planting himself inches from the window fan in my room. Seriously, I would leave at 9 in the morning, and return to find this:


So I decided to take a bit of a mental holiday, spending a couple of days with a new friend. Luckily I still had shows going on at the Bad Dog, and with my kick-ass sketch troupe. In fact, you can see below a low-res pic of the photo shoot we did earlier this month. That's us, standing knee-deep in beautiful and pristine Lake Ontario.


I burned those pants.

But that's not the best part. The BEST part is that as of last week, Approximately 3 Peters have reached the web. That's right, we're the latest jerks with a web-page! It's located at www.3peters.com, and hopefully sometime soon we'll have some actual content (as opposed to just a nifty web design courtesy of Peter's brother).

So let's see what happened next... (I'm literally flipping through my daytimer, trying to remember). More shows, more working random shifts, including the night we all had to spend 5 hours cleaning the theatre from top to bottom. Luckily, our bosses got us drunk. The perks of working in a theatre/ bar. I spent a lot of time just hanging out around the city, snapping some neat pictures. Like this nativity display I found in front of someone's house in Little Italy.


Or this spiffy, futuristic shot of the RBC Building:


Or this, from when I was patrolling the city's rooftops meteing out vigilante justice:


But then, a plot twist! Remember how I usually use this blog to complain about not being able to get any acting work, and how everyone in Toronto can go to hell? Well all that changed when I was cast in a Subway commercial. That's right, I'm officially shilling for Subway Pizza!


Here's my co star, the super-duper funny Fraser Young (seriously one of the best stand ups I've ever seen).


And here's the top-secret set (so, uh, don't tell anyone).


As you can see, that's one pretty intense camera they've got set up. Apparently it's a Panavision Genesis II HD Digital Camera, this specific unit having been most recently used months previous to film Superman Returns. That didn't really have any effect on the commercial or my perfomance, but any excuse to link myself to the Man of Steel is welcome in my book.

So let's see. Blah, blah, blah... more shows, started my improv workshop this month, yadda yadda. I did get to go to the Dora Awards, thanks to my friend Brandy having an extra ticket.


It was good times, and I got to watch The Lord of The Rings win an impressive 7 awards. Then, I got to read the newspapaer as the show closed 3 days later, and the producers blamed everyone from Toronto's theatre critics to border security. Luckily someone had the courage to stand up to their childish whining, and wrote a letter to some editors (which you can see here, and here).

Lastly, I had a big audition last week for a little comedy theatre where I've been known to sell some tickets. No work for Ian, but I did score a callback, which for the time being will serve as ample encouragement. Plus, I got some amazingly kind feedback from my fellow improvisers and the general director. Go me!

So that's been my past month. In closing, I leave you with a picture of a fantastic brie and avacado sandwich my friend Mim made for me one time. It is seriously sandwiches like this from kind friends that keep me going in this world. Later, y'all.

The Last 48 Days

So I am already aware that it has not quite been 48 days since my last post. The title is in reference to an episode of LOST from a few months ago. And I'm now aware that the episode was actually titled "The Other 48 Days", which already renders my reference irrelevant. I thought the point of blogs was to snipe at and point out inaccuracies in other people's writing, not your own.

(Speaking of LOST, the season finale is this week. If we don't get some kind of satisfying answers, I may have to start obsessing over some other piece of pop-culture triviality.)

Actually, that brings me to something that's been on my mind for the past month. For a guy who lives in one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse cities in the world, it seems like all I ever end up talking about to people is pop-culture junk. Granted, most of the people I live/ work/ hang out/ associate with are also actors, so it stands to reason that our conversations would drift towards shared interests (arts and entertainment and the like). But it seems as though lately all I ever talk about to people is "wow, you liked (insert obscure 80's carton show) too! That show rocked!" or " man, did you see (television show X) this week? Let's discuss it in minute detail!". The worst part is, often times I find myself at a loss for something else to talk about. And that worries me. And don't even get me started on us actors sitting around and talking about "da bizness". I used to heartily make fun of those people, for God's sakes. I remember last month, a friend of mine was here from out of town, and I felt like we genuinely had a lot of interesting things to talk about. Life, happiness, religion, different experiences, making funny emu-faces, whatever. It was great. Or at least, she had a lot to talk about. I mainly listened. But either way, I'm thinking maybe a trip away from it all is in order. I'll keep pondering that. The problem is, I feel especially uncreative lately. Uninteresting, unfunny, uninspired. I feel like the improv and the comedy I've been doing has been really half-assed and mediocre. I worry, because I can't distinguish whether this is a result of working too hard and being too busy, or a deeper lack of talent and ability (and before you all jump collectively down my throat, don't try to pretend you never think it either. These thoughts come and go for everyone).

I'm pretty sure that I've written previously about a desire to expand my horizons. To what end, I don't know. Maybe a cooking class? Or a trip? Or move to a different city?

So like I promised, here's what's been going on since I last wrote on this blog. We last left our hero in April, with the cryptic words "Boo-urns". I was bummed out about a surprising revelation (which in retrospect, should not have come as much of a surprise). After that, I started my latest job with my temp agency, this time working for a great big honkin' consulting firm on Bay Street. The job is dead boring though it has to do with a rather salacious story on the Candian financial-investment-front. I'm basically pushing papers for the next few weeks. Which is fine, given that I get to dress casually, listen to my discman, and they let me go out to auditions. Plus, the view from the 24th floor of BCE place ain't too shabby. Check it out:


I went through a few weeks a little while back where I had about 5 auditions per week. Now, I haven't heard from my agent in over two weeks. That's not helped my mood. Though I have been thoroughly enjoying the shows I've been doing at the Bad Dog. One of the more notable events of the month past was... I moved! I am now a proud resident of the slightly sketchy neighbourhood at the corner of Bloor West and Ossington St. We now live near such colourful locales as (insert "These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood" song):

- the crappy little laundromat where I spent two hours Friday, trying to get my laundry done. The machines cost too much, are too small, and get "unbalanced" every 10 minutes. I don't even know what 'unbalanced' means, but it's frustrating.

- the LCBO across the street, which is almost too convenient.

- our upstairs neighbour, two friendly young Ecuadorian girls (and their little dog, Bandido) who are opening a Gelatto bar on College St, and enjoy blaring Latin dance music and Jill Barber at all hours (bear in mind, for me 11:30am on a Sunday constitutes 'all hours').

- the slightly creepy "Bloor Cafe and Deli" directly below us, which appears to be neither a cafe nor deli. It's more a 24-hour hang-out for various tough looking local men, where they blare the television at all hours of the night and don't actually sell anything. I've never really seen a mob front in my life, but I assume that they look a lot like the Bloor Cafe and Deli. Oh, plus the floors in our apartment are plywood-thin, and when it's quiet we can hear the guys downstairs clear their throats. Lord help us when they start naming names...

Funny story about moving, we had to do it a day early. Andy (my roommate) and I were all set to move our belongings jointly on May the 1st. Sunday April the 30th I was at work, planning to finish my packing that night. Instead, I get a call on my cell phone at 1 in the afternoon to the effect of "Dude, my landlord's kicking me out today. We have to move now". I found someone to take my shift over, and managed to pack all of my earthly belongings in one afternoon (except my mirror, my toiletries, my pots, and everything else I forgot). Meanwhile, Andrew managed to rent a van on the busiest moving day of year (which fell, naturally, on a Sunday) and also ended up getting caught in a giant Sikh parade which had commandeered Lakeshore Dr. Let that be a lesson, never plan to move on the 307th anniversary of the founding of the Sikh religion.

For the record, I have included a link to Andy's imdb page becasue I know that if he sees it, it will bug him. Tee hee.

So our new apartment is serving us well. I'm barely there, between the two jobs, rehearsals, and shows. The Peters and I played a two night gig at the Cameron House, to much acclaim (and a whopping $28! To split, however. Not each). We're trying to get a monthly night going at the Cameron, I'll let you know more about that. Two weeks ago my little, sorry, younger brother Neil came to visit. The highlights of the visit included a trip to the nosebleed sections at a Jays game (they lost, 4-0), some homemade donairs with fixin's Neil had smuggled into the province, and an excursion to my Theatresports show (in which I secured the MVP award and discovered the MVP hat, my team won with a record-breaking 43 score, and my director Jack gave me the helpful note "Ian, your brother's a punk"). Here's the little punk himself:


Let's see what else... I've been on a few dates recently, not much to tell there (I've said it before, this ain't one of those blogs). I caught a late night screening of The Monster Squad last week, a classic from my childhood which can best be described as a combination of The Goonies, Stand By Me, and Ghostbusters. I've been in a very pensive (and frankly, whiny and self-pitying) mood lately. Thinking about where I am, what I'm doing. Wondering how long I can keep trying to be an actor. Thinking about things I can do to help myself. I'm still eagerly waiting to do the IO improv intensive this summer: I just dropped off my cheque last week.

Hmmm.. I've kind of run out of steam here. Not really a whole lot to talk about. I promise a speedier post next time, with a bit more to discuss. Cheers, all.


"Wolfman's got nards!"

Boo-Urns

Boo-Urns. That pretty much sums it up.