comed-ian

Week 2 (much belated)

2009-02-05T13:14:00.010-05:00

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

2009-01-29T16:00:00.007-05:00

(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?

2009-01-14T19:18:00.006-05:00

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...?

2007-07-17T10:56:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-07-03T10:51:00.001-04:00

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

2007-07-03T10:43:00.001-04:00

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

2007-07-03T10:34:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-23T13:27:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-17T11:34:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-10T14:09:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-06-01T23:18:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-20T23:33:00.000-04:00

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

Additional Picture Fun!

2006-08-05T18:29:00.000-04:00

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!

2006-07-20T22:02:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-08T20:19:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-15T01:13:00.000-04:00

Boo-Urns. That pretty much sums it up.

"Get Some Grownup Pants!"

2006-04-11T16:27:00.000-04:00

Wow. Another week down. Leading to what, no one knows. So once again it's been a couple of weeks since my last post. I bring you the highlights now.

- Michelle and Neal's wedding was positively fairytale-esque (provided the fairytale involves copious amounts of newfie screech). My friend (and defacto-date) Amanda sang opera during the service (she was so good, she came this close to upstaging the proceedings. But not quite). Evidently, the pianist was quite excited to accompany someone with actual classical training, as opposed to "the bride's best friend who sings really great karaoke". The entire service was held at Casa Loma, which is notable for being a) a castle in the middle of downtown Toronto, and b) the stand in for "Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Mutants" in the first X-Men Movie. Riley made a fantastic bridesmaid, easily making the most entertaining speech (and trust me, there were many speeches). I spent the evening taking it easy and enjoying the open bar, you know, once I had actually arrived (I got there just in time for the priest to say "please be seated" to everyone). I hung out with Cal and Amanda, and spent most of the night talking to one of Neal's cute lawyer friends (who disappeared early, thus preventing me from getting her phone number. Damn slippery lawyers!). All in all, one of the finest weddings I've ever been to.

- Last week, I signed up with a new temp agency, called Quantum. And let me tell you, these people know how to get shit done. Not 3 hours after I left my interview, they were calling me with my first job. Now if only acting jobs were this easy to come by.

- I had my first rehearsal for the next Bad Dog show, Hardboiled. I tells ya, the people doing this show are truly making me want to bring my A-game. Some really funny folks. I'll let you guys know when it's opening.

- Last week, I got a care package in the mail from my (apparently wonderful) folks. It contained massive amounts of Easter chocolate, a curious amount of toiletries, and best of all, the first 4 episodes of the new Sopranos season!

Have I explained to you all how much my Dad kicks ass?

- I have started compiling a list of words and phrases I rely too heavily on in my everyday vernacular. They include: kick-ass; dude; amazing; sorry; fantastic; man; funkaliscious (well, maybe not that one)

- I have become addicted to MySpace. It's rather disgusting. Here, take a look.

- I had a great Lord of the Things show on friday, and a pretty good Theatresports show on Saturday. Unfortunately, we were not able to retain our title against RUSH (the Improv Troupe). But there's always next month...

- I plowed through the latest Harry Potter book this past week. It never ceases to amaze me how these kids' books utterly and completely draw me in. Plus, Snape!?!?!?

- I had a great morning today, and a rather crap-tastic afternoon. I slept in till 10, made some tasty scrambled eggs and watched some Sopranos. As soon as I left the house, it all went to crap. I went to the wrong casting agency and missed my audition. Then, on my way to work I got into a random argument with some other bicyclist who passed me while riding on King Street. He had dangerously sped past me in a very narrow spot, so at the next red light I promptly chewed him out in front of a crowd of passers by. I told him not to pass me like that again, and then (regarding his spandex biking tights) advised him to "buy some grownup pants!". I would concede that this was an unnecessary outburst, brought on by my audition frustration, if it hadn't felt sooo fucking gooood...

- Upon arriving to work today, I found out that a promotion I had applied for went to someone with scads more experience. And then I found out that my temp job tomorrow got pushed back again. Grrr....

- Tonight, the Peters and I attempt to conquer the Rivoli. Wish us luck!

So what's on my mind today? I've been following the story about the biker gangs in Southern Ontario lately. Apparently, within 48 hours the police had charged 5 people from the Bandidos biker gang in the crime. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed. Then I heard about another unusual murder case, this one involving a bingo player murdered by 4 women, apparently over a $1000 jackpot. Upon hearing this, my mind basically wrote a comedy sketch about it all within seconds. I pictured a darkened clubhouse, with three little old ladies sitting around splitting up the loot. Things get tense as they argue over their cuts, and then a phone call arrives:

"Irene isn't going to make it. Someone took her out."
"Who?"
"The Bandidos got her!"

Then my roommate Greg suggested the name "Grandidos" and we giggled ourselves silly.

Oh, by the by, the Bandidos have a website. I love the internet.

Before I go, here are some shows I have coming up. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line. Cheers,

Apr 11 2006 9:00P Approximately 3 Peters @ the SketchCOMedy Lounge @ the Rivoli
Apr 13 2006 8:00P Approximately 3 Peters @ Radio Vault @ Bad Dog Theatre
Apr 21 2006 8:00P Lord of the Things @ Bad Dog Theatre
Apr 26 2006 8:00P Approximately 3 Peters @ Midweek Mayhem @ Bad Dog Theatre

The Post Without a Point

2006-04-01T00:49:00.000-05:00

Well, first off I'd like to thank everyone for the responses to my last post. Apparently all one has to do to elicit sympathy is whine self-pityingly on one's blog, and the people will come a runnin'. Though I must admit to being very curious who some of those specific people are. I have several theories. With the exception of Ray, and Garby, who incidentally gets the prize for "most specific advice" with her quote "I've taken to drinking...". That much, I think I can handle.

So it's been another week, here in the big city. My life at this point has basically broken down into this: I stay home during the day, puttering around on the internet and applying for various online job postings, emerging occasionally for sporadic auditions. I either work at the Second City in the evenings, or I go to the Bad Dog to do shows and rehearsals. And that's really it. Work, home, show, work home show workhomeshowworkhomeshow. In the interest of hopefully finding some more gameful employment, I've signed up with several temp agencies. And, I found a new apartment. It's at the corner of Bloor and Ossington, and I'll be living there with Mr. Andrew Bush and Mr. Scott Stephenson.

You know, I'm writing this post, and I realize that I have absolutely no idea what I'm writing about. My head feels like it's in a fog lately, a fog that rolled in sometime early last fall and hasn't left for months. It seems like I spend more time daydreaming lately than doing anything constructive, and this I feel is the real reason I'm so dismayed lately. I'm happiest when I have purpose in life (what an earth-shattering concept) and lately it seems that I can't even conceive what that purpose might be, let alone find it. My iTunes on my computer right now seems to be favouring my Radiohead selections, and that suits my mood perfectly. It's mysterious, vague, over-stimulated, and spontaneously angry. Right about now, I just want some meaningful interaction with someone. It's been weeks, possibly months, since I had a conversation with someone that made me actually feel engaged (read. conversations about TV shows or background work or cell phones or callback auditions DO NOT qualify). I guess I just feel really cut off lately. I feel like I'm fumbling around in the dark in this city, not just in my career but in everything I do. Every time I have an idea or try and affect a change, it just gets swallowed up into the darkness around me. I can't tell if anything I'm doing is having any kind of effect on anything. And that's all any of us want in our lives: to see the effects of things we do. My friend Gino seems to think it's time for me to move to another city, he recommends Edmonton. I personally can't really see myself moving out west, but I can't really see myself doing a lot of things. Maybe that's why I'm so unhappy. I need too much assurance before I'll do anything - I basically need to know what the outcome will be before I do it. I don't try enough new things. Maybe living in a new city will do me some good.

I do have one project I'm working towards. It's a 5-week improvisation intensive being taught here in Toronto this summer. It's 6 hours of improv, 4 days a week, taught by teachers from the ImprovOlympic in Chicago. The only kicker: It's $1200. Plus, one can't exactly hold down a 9-5 job while doing it. On the other hand, I'm absolutely sure that this one big gesture will restore meaning to my life.

Alright, I'm getting snippy with myself. Time to go to sleep. After all, I've got a wedding to attend tomorrow. Everyone wish Michelle and Neal luck.

Here's your homework assignment, ladies and gentlemen. What's something you do to cheer yourself up? And lets see some names on our work this time.

Is Anyone Still Reading This...

2006-03-26T18:41:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Wow, like 3 weeks since I last posted. Not a whole lot to say. Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like none of your plans in life are ever going to come true? Like, for no reason at all you get this flash of... insight, I guess, and you just know that everything you're working for just isn't going to pan out in the end.

If you ever get that, write me and tell me about it. I'm genuinely curious if I'm the only one.

Polar Bears Join the WWF!

2006-03-06T16:44:00.000-05:00

Greetings loyal readers. I come before you with a worthy cause. The Earth. I enjoy it. I'd like to see it kick around for a while longer. At least until I die (my kids are on their own). Now I personally am not opposed to a little global warming. I do live in Canada after all. A couple extra degrees here and there might actually bring our winters down to a "chilly", as opposed to "soul-crushing", temperature.

But of course, I'm sure that my gradual climate change plan would have some kind of downside I can't see right now. Probably in Mexico. While our temperature might rise enough to permit wearing only one comfortable jacket in the winter, I imagine people in Latin America would just begin spontaneously combusting. So I guess it behooves us to keep the climate more or less where it is.

Which brings me to my pitch. This April the 29th, I will be participating in the World Wildlife Foundation's annual CN Tower Climb. It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like, and I'll be trying to raise pledges for the WWF to use in their (apparently non-violent) battle agaist global climate change.

Oh, the things I get roped into when I'm surfing the web at work.

So this is where you come in. I want you to be those suckers-I mean, pledges. You can make them on my own personally-customized website here. They say $20 suggested donation, but feel free to donate whatever you like. If not for me, then do it for Roger.

above: Roger, the activist polar bear.

Words Fail Me

2006-03-06T00:23:00.000-05:00

I know I e-mailed pretty much everyone I know, but just... just take a look at this.

Nerd Post

2006-03-05T17:45:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, here's a great article on Ain't It Cool News all about this year's comic book awards. If you don't get it right away, you're not gonna get any of it. Nice shout outs in there to Spider-Man/ Human Torch, Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius, Seven Soldiers of Victory, Brian K. Vaughan, and Halifax's own Scott Pilgrim. Well, technically, Toronto's own, but Bryan Lee O’Malley lives and works in the 902 now. So I guess I get to lay claim to him in both cities.

Heh, "Dammit, Schleppy wishes Schleppy could quit you".

Everything Must Go!

2006-03-05T15:30:00.000-05:00

So it's been brought to my attention, namely by Lisa Garby, that I haven't updated this blog in... a couple of weeks. There's a reason for that. Namely laziness. Or sloth, if you will. But frankly, I've had a lousy couple of weeks. Things have ranged from jejune to outright craptastical. Having said that, I'm sure that none of you care. Well, that's not true. You're either reading this blog because you're a) my mom, b) a friend of mine, or c) someone who has never met me, and therefore reads this with a kind of awed respect. So it does stand to reason that you would care about what kind of a month I'm having.

In the interest of full disclosure, here is a brief summary: Not getting enough hours at work, hard going looking for a new job, everyone is too busy to hang out, bird flu looms, I wrote a follow up e-mail for an audition and managed to mess up the title of the authour/ director's show, looks like I won't be doing "Lord of the Things" for a while (rotating cast), I'm pretty broke, I ate some expired rice on Thursday, I wrote another e-mail to one of my Bad Dog directors where I mistook him for someone completely different, and I think my new brand of deoderant is giving me a rash.

Oh yeah, and I owe hundreds of dollars in income tax. Almost forgot that one.

Well, there it is. I promise though, that is the last you will hear of my woes. Onto the good news. Theatresports has officially opened! All five teams have finally been announced and named, and here they are for you to peruse:

Everything Must Go! - Ian MacIntyre, James Jeffers, Jim Talyor
RUSH (the Improv Troupe) - Adam Cawley, Brad Sayeau, Tom MacKay
DANG! – Rochelle Wilson, Stefanie Drummond, James Gangl
King Sized Snickers – Merk Wieclawski, Paloma Nunez, Angela Sweeting
The Snit – Becky Bays, Jason Gemmill, Erin Conway

We had our first preview show last night, and boy howdy what a show it was. The first match-up in the rotation was our team, Everything Must Go!, vs RUSH. I'll give you the highlights: the first half of the show was an exhibition round with all 6 players working together...

(Actually, here's something interesting. I was going to write all about the scenes in the show last night, and then I realized that improv scenes are never funny in retrospect. Especially when you're telling people about them. Improv really is the ultimate disposable art form - with a play at least it can be remounted. But with improv it only exists for an instant, and you move on).

So I'll sum it all up by saying we won.

I will say though that this was the most satisfying, fun, and energetic improv I've done in months. Hopefully this show sets the tone for the next few months worth of shows to come. Speaking of, I'm doing another show at the Bad Dog, news of that to come...

Happy Lisa?

A Confederacy of Extras

2006-02-18T16:03:00.000-05:00

Hello loyal readers. I'm just sitting here in the Second City Box Office on a frigid Saturday afternoon. Nothing more than two plate glass doors separates me from -24 degree wind-chill. So I feel that it behooves me to follow up on my last post. As an astute reader reminded me, I omitted the most interesting part of the War of 1812. Now, all Canadians (self included) are quite familiar with this historical fact, but no mention of the War is complete without boldly stating - WE CANADIANS BURNED DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE! Seriously. Eat it American readership.

For this past week, I've been promising to log an entry regarding my extra work. Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed the picture at the end of my Wednesday entry: This is a picture of Ricky Gervais from the genius BBC comedy series Extras. As I have discovered, Mr. Gervais' hilarious and surreal exploits in the world of "background artistry" are not terribly far from the truth (except the hilarious part). By the by, if you ever want to see the first series of Extras, I still have it burned on my iBook, and will happily share.

(for the record, I started writing this post at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. It is currently 8:46 pm)

As for my extra job, it all started with me being broke. Not quite "selling my own teeth for rent" broke, but less financially secure than I'd prefer (stop hyperventilating, Mom). This economic downturn led me to look for a new part-time job, or at least led me to talk about looking for another job for the better part of January. At one point, it was suggested by several friends that I might look into extra work. As I am an ACRTA Apprentice (Canadian Film and Television Actor's Union, thankyouverymuch) the pay is actually quite reasonable, quite agreeable, considering an extra's job is the very definition of easy. Basically, you stand in the background of a shot while much better paid actors go about the business of actually acting. Provided that you can stand in the periphery and not draw any attention to yourself, you're already doing the job. Essentially an extra's job is to professionally exist.

So I signed up with several extra agencies (no rules govern how many one can register with, thus an enterprising actor can truly become a mercenary-for-hire). It was only 5 days later that I got my first call. I did find it curious that I was being called with an offer of work from a woman I had never met. Picture applying for a job that literally every human being is qualified for. Since it doesn't matter who they hire, they can literally offer the day's work to anyone. And that day I was that anyone.

So I showed up at the set 15 minutes early for my 10am call. Since this is a Disney Channel show set in a high school, the only directive I was given was a dire warning to arrive clean-shaven. Little do they know, I could not successfully grow facial hair if the fate of the free world hung in the balance. So I arrived at the studio, in actuality a refurbished textile factory in downtown Toronto. I found my way to the "Background Holding" area, a term which conjures up (well-deserved) images of livestock holding pens. The entire room appeared to be built from discarded plywood (which didn't even reach the ceiling), and church-basement folding tables - it was an 18-foot cubed chicken coop. I myself would much prefer being a free-range extra, but I don't think they exist. Surveying my fellow 25 or so extras, everyone seemed to look the part of a high school student (with the exception of 2 teacher-extras). I did find it amusing that no single person in the room was wearing eye glasses (self included). I always find this when I encounter a "professional" actor crowd. Everyone is dressed up as much as the part will allow, and no one wants to admit that they wear glasses. I only noticed this because at a recent "Lord of the Things" rehearsal I realized that everyone in the room was wearing glasses. Conclusion: All improvisers are nerds.

Once our clothing choices had been inspected by Midori from wardrobe (no skin - again, Disney) we were on our way to the set. The high school set of "Life With Derek" consists of one short hallway, a mildly impressive lobby, a modest cafeteria, and a principal's office (which is evidently the setting of many scenes - oh that Derek!). It's weird enough going back to your own high school, but going to a pretend high school (and only half of one at that!) is truly strange.

But soon came the most important part of the day - lunch. Apparently extras can get fed very well, or very not (this day was the former). I always have the problem at buffets of not being able to narrow down my choices - instead of one meal, I opt to eat little bits of everything which looks appetizing (the sum of which usually adds up to 2 1/2 meals). I ate a not-too-shabby meal of chick peas, Greek salad, garden salad, bean salad, steamed veggies, wild rice, a slab of roast beef the size of a Gideon Bible, a chicken breast, a tasty roll, baked potatoes, carrots, orange juice, a delightful cookie, a modest piece of coffee cheese cake, and some actual coffee. And to think, I was being paid to eat all this.

I met lots of fairly interesting people on my set day. Given that most of the extras were playing high school students, none of them were old enough to be the squirrelly "lifer" extras that people always talk about. There was Gregory, the teacher extra who had also played a zombie in "Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse". Dan, the 20-year-old York University acting undergrad/ veteran extra. Taylor, the cute 3rd A.D. with the tiniest eyebrows I've ever seen. And from all these people, I came to one conclusion - all actors talk about is acting. But not the art and craft and thrill of acting, no - the boring business crap. ALL THE TIME. Endless circular discussion of pay scales, overtime, schedules, agencies, unions, substantial meals, travel time, series regulars, headshots, make up, deductions, meal vouchers, wrap times, wardrobe calls, dues, specialty wardrobes, regular wardrobes, and finally, commercials. Ugh. It's enough to make me want to chuck it all in and become a legal clerk or something. Eventually, the monontony gets so bad that you will obey orders from anyone with a headset. People played an hour long game of Texas hold'em poker while we waited in the holding pen-sorry, room. Time literally crawled.

In the end though, it was definitely worth it. I can honestly say it was the easiest money I've ever made, and that's nothing to sneeze at. I got to read another hundred pages of A Confederacy of Dunces (I highly recommend it) and made some overtime. Now, if only I could get some real work.

ps. The time is currently 2:08 am.

For the Record

2006-02-17T02:23:00.000-05:00

Let it be said that I didn't intend to offend any of my regular American readers with that last post. All two of you, that is (you know who you are).

What's On My Mind

2006-02-17T00:26:00.000-05:00

So I am gonna write, sorry, blog in a second about my fascinating experiences as a paid film extra earlier in the week. But I do want to tell you guys about something else first. I was trolling the net for international breaking stories... naw, just kidding. So I'm watching "The Daily Show", and I see a story about a new film that's just been released overseas. It's called "Kurtlar Vadisi Irak", or in the common tongue, "Valley of the Wolves Iraq".

It is a violently Anti-American film which depicts "trigger-happy US troops massacr(ing) civilians at a wedding party"... "firebomb(ing) a mosque during evening prayer," and doctors "removing human organs from Iraqi prisoners to send to patients in the US, Israel and Britain". This fiery polemic is gaining popularity in the Middle East, starting in its country of origin... Turkey?!?! What the fuck? I thought the US and Turkey were friends? At first I would have assumed this movie must have come out of Iraq itself. Or possibly Iran. Or Saudi Arabia.

Anyways, why couldn't Iraq have made this film themselves? Is this a sign that the American liberators are being gradually welcomed? Or... have their film studios all been blown up? Either way, what's up with Turkey? Other than the July 2003 arrest of Turkish special forces in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq by American troops, upon which the film is based. And how did Turkey manage to snag Billy Zane (as an evil commanding soldier), and Gary Busey (as an even more evil... sigh... Jewish doctor. That's not gonna help matters). I mean, we Canadians fall all over ourselves when we can snag Tori Spelling in a Movie Of the Week. How did Turkey of all places manage to get the Phantom and the bad guy from "Under Siege" to appear in their anti-American propaganda? Perhaps it's the film's 10-million dollar budget, equal to roughly the entire combined budget of every Canadian film produced this year. Including "ReGenesis".

Who knows, maybe the Turkish are on to something? Why can't we do the same thing here in Canada? I can see it now: "The War of 1812" Starring, uh... Alec Baldwin as the nefarious American General John Quincy Adams (in my film, he uses kittens for target practice. Canadian kittens). Also starring Don MacKellar as Admiral Sir George Cockburn (legally, he has to appear in every Canadian film ever. In fact I heard they're digitally re-inserting him into "Porky's"), and General Robert Ross will be played by young up-and-comer Ian MacIntyre (my movie, my casting). It'll be great. We can raise the money somehow (Canned food drive? Or get rid of Medicare). But look at it this way. Creating an angry pro-Canadian rallying-cry which will raise jingoistic fervor while destroying what good American will we have left - $10 million. Having Canadians actually watch a Canadian film - priceless.

Wow. That went on for longer than I expected. I'm sure your eyes are as tired as mine. I'll write about being an extra tomorrow (or rather, later today). I promise. G'night.

Links a Poppin'

2006-02-15T17:11:00.000-05:00

So it's plug time again for Ian. I realizing that as of late this blog is becoming less a journal of my thoughts and more an ongoing web-based advertisement. As much as the idea of the internet playing host to advertising (of all things) disgusts me, there are a few shows I'm doing to let people know about.

First is my weekly Lord of the Things plug. The show is getting tighter every week, and should be in great shape by the time we actually open (Mar. 3rd, btw).

Next is a show that I will be briefly appearing in this Sunday night called The Second City That Never Sleeps. It's a 24-hour comedy-a-thon starting this Sunday at 10:30 on the Second City Mainstage. How it works is you can get in anytime for $20, and stay as long as you like. But if you leave, it's another $20 to re-enter. I know $20 seems steep, but it's for charity (so they're allowed to over-charge). I'll be appearing with a group of Conservatory Graduates during the sweet 4-5am slot. Some of the other acts that I'm looking forward to include Monkey Toast, Catch 23, Knock Knock Who's There Comedy, and The Neutrino Project. There's lot's more acts, but those are just the ones I feel like plugging right now. Oh yeah, and it's for charity: The Theraputic Clown Project at the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital, and the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund. So that's another reason to come.

And the final show I'm plugging... well, this is the one I'm rapidly getting the most excited about. It's the Theatresports show (also at the Bad Dog, opens Mar. 4th). Not only have the rehearsals with Jack Mosshammer and Lisa Merchant been a blast, but it sounds like the show is going to be something of a big deal. I mean, this post on the Bad Dog website really makes it sound like it's going to be the second coming. My favourite parts are:

"In the early to mid-80s, Theatresports was one of the hottest shows in Toronto - there was just nothing else like it and audiences flowed for years. The Second City (not to mention SNL) habitually raided the ranks of the cast for themselves."

"The Artistic Trio are dedicated to putting this show back on the map as one of the premiere improv shows in the city, a place where new and upcoming talent comes to develop."

and

"We're going to work really hard at plugging this show to the media and the public as much as we can."

So yay Theatresports. Once again, I'm not getting any money for doing this. But I think of much worse ways to pay one's dues.

Oh, and stay tuned for my next blog entry, all about Ian's first exposure to the fascinating world of... extra work.

Nuclear Wessels

2006-02-05T02:09:00.000-05:00

I don't even like Star Trek, but I'd say the results speak for themselves.

Your results:
You are Chekov

Chekov		60%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		55%
Geordi LaForge		55%
Jean-Luc Picard		50%
Uhura		45%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		45%
Will Riker		40%
Data		40%
Deanna Troi		35%
Worf		30%
Spock		25%
Mr. Sulu		25%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		25%
Mr. Scott		20%
Beverly Crusher		10%

Brash, rash and hasty,
but everyone loves you.

Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz...

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2006-02-04T17:40:00.000-05:00

Hey loyal viewers. So, I've recieved some feedback that my last post was a bit on the cryptic side. This should prove once and for all that I shouldn't post on this blog after I've had a few drinks. For the record, I had just come from doing a show with my group Approximately 3 Peters. It was late, and I felt that the other group on the bill (Mrs. Chicakaburn's Old-Fashioned Comedy Cookies, who had ivited us to open for them) had really shown us up. Not in a mean way, but in a "they obviously have put a lot of time and work into their sketches" way. Which is not to say that I don't feel the boys and I work hard; I guess I just always wish we could work harder.

Of course, I could always work independantly and motivate myself. But that's just crazy talk.

This brings me back to my point about making changes. Recently I've been feeling like I left my rut behind in Halifax only to create a whole new one here in Toronto. Halfway across the country and two years only to develop new bad habits. So that's why I want to make changes. Here are all the things I want to change (in no particular order):

- my hair
- my wardrobe
- my wireless phone provider
- my apartment (I love it, but 2 years in 1 place is a long time)
- my day job
- my physical fitness (and by extension, my diet)
- my sleeping habits
- pretty much my entire financial situation
- the direction of my entire career

So that's the task I've set out for myself. Shouldn't be a problem. I should have this all taken care of well before 2007, just in time for Year of the Ian.

So last night we opened "Lord of the Things" at the Bad Dog, and it went surprisingly well. I say "surprisingly" because I never got a chance to run the show from beginning to end, and therefore was mildly concerned that I would single-handedly destroy the entire evening's proceedings. But they went well (in spite of our first act running 15-minutes too long - that's improv for ya). My highlight of the show (not by me) was Tom as "the Elf" and his Elfen Ballads - basically slow, mournful versions of anything from "Hotel California" to "99 Luft Balloons". My highlight of the show (by me) was midway through, when I (playing the Dark Lord) talked with the audience. There was a young boy in the audience, Nicholas, to whom we went for all our audience suggestions. I was killing time, telling various audience members what role they would play in my future evil kingdom:

"You sir, shall be the Duke of Agony! And you madame, shall be the Countess of Mischief! And you Nicholas, shall be the... Minister of Agriculture! Bwah-hahaha!"

It was a fun show, and it'll only get better when we get our timing down a bit more - I mean, we were perfect! A finer comedy show has never, nor will ever again grace the earth (except for next Friday, and every subsequent Friday after that. $12, tell your friends!)

Not much else going on. Cooked the best stir-fry ever on Thursday (wait, that should read "Cooked my best stir-fry ever").I had a weird audition yesterday: It took me all the way from my apartment on a 45-minute bike ride across town. When I arrived at this warehouse-like film studio, I was handed a street hockey stick and instructed to "mess around" with the other guys. Slowly, other young men trickled in also to be presented with hockey sticks. Even though I have absolutely no ability playing hockey, I'm the brother of a guy who has lots of hockey ability. "I got this audition sewn up" I thought. Apparently not. Luckily, it was soon determined that all of the other guys auditioning were just as, if not more, athletically inept than I was. Neil, you would have been proud of me. Or really, really embarassed.

So I had a fun miday workout, followed by another 45-minute bike ride home. This time, up hill.

ps. Congratulations to Riley, who just wrote her LSAT's today. At least, I hope congratulations. Either way, we'll get drinks.

Sunday night

2006-01-30T00:19:00.000-05:00

It's time for me to make some big changes in my life.

What? I still have a blog?

2006-01-27T19:05:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I know it's been while since I updated this thing, but in my defense, I've had an unreasonable amount of free time lately. You see, having too much spare time somehow seems to breed inactivity with me. It doesn't make much sense, but then again, neither do I.

So I'm back in to full-on plug mode again. That's right, Approximately 3 Peters have some shows coming up. First off, we are appearing with the enormously talented Mrs. Chickaburn's Old-Fashioned Comedy Cookies this Sunday night (and by "appearing with", I of course mean "opening for"). The show will be $5, at Clinton's Bar (693 Bloor St. W), and starts at 9pm. Best not to get there late, as you just might miss us.

Next up, we'll be appearing (again) at the famous SketchComedy Lounge on Tuesday night. I always find this a tough room, so any support you might have would be encouraging.

Beyond that we've got some improv gigs booked next month, and another night at The Bad Dog Theatre's Sketch Night. And speaking of the Bad Dog...

I've told most people about this, but I'm now ready to announce it to the world. I voted Conservative! No wait, that's not true (and shame on those who did). I'm going to be appearing in the Bad Dog Theatre's upcoming improvised parody of Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Things!

Actually, as I type this, I'm pretty sure that I already posted about the show. But now I have more details! It's funny! (that's the first detail). The cast is a mix of really funny "up and comers" and some fantastic established improvisers from around the city. Guess which one I am. From the looks of things, I'll be playing the Dark Lord himself early on. No, not Stephen Harper (ha ha, political satire is fun!), but eventually I may be playing other parts. I can't promise how soon I'll actually be in the show; you see, there's a cast of about 23, and some of them (okay, most of them) have a lot more seniority than myself. But hopefully I'll know soon when I'll be onstage. And like I said, the show is funny. I legally guarantee that. We've been having a blast in rehearsals, so as long as we don't burn ourselves out it should still be funny with an audience.

As well, I'm going to be doing another show at the Bad Dog this summer. Geez, if they keep not paying me to do their shows, I just may have to... keep doing their shows. It's actually unfortunate, doing this show meant backing out of another show I was really looking forward to. But I did agree to this first (fairness, etc). It looks like it'll be a revolving team cage-match type improv show. I do know it'll be on Saturday nights at 8pm, and they have some kick ass people lined up. I'll have even more info on that soon, and I'll be sure to make sure everybody knows about it.

Let's see... specific Ian news. Like I said, lots of free time lately. I had a few auditions this week, and I've submitted for summer theatre work. I've been e-mailing back and forth with my friend Jen in Korea. In my e-mails I've been thoughtfully including Korean translations for such handy phrases as "Forgive me, I did not mean to dishonour your Gas Station". I've been rehearsing a lot lately, and I just read a fantastic biography of John Belushi. Oh yeah, and today I had the greatest grocery shopping experience ever! Since I moved to Toronto, I've been shopping at the Dominion store in my neighborhood. Well, today I had the time so I took the subway to the nearest discount grocery store, here known as No Frills. It was INCREDIBLE! I saved literally $35 on my groceries, and I got twice as many fruits and vegetables as I have ever bought. I bought ginger root, for gods' sakes! I don't even know how to cook anything with ginger root. But at 29 cents, how could I afford not to get it?

So yeah, come on over to Ian's house. Apparently I'll be cooking in the near future.

"Oh hey, I did just say that"

2006-01-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

Tonight, my box office co-worker tried to demonstarte a sudoku puzzle to a group of positively giddy patrons. He explained that, because the Japanese written language is so complex, their crosswords instead focus on numbers.

"Oh", exclaimed one young woman "that must be why they're all so smart!"

"Oh come on, there must be some stupid Japanese people."

Oh yeah. That was me saying that last part, instead of thinking it.

Beholden

2006-01-14T21:50:00.000-05:00

There are few things that cause me more anxiety than having someone buy something for me. I'm not talking about big things either: thus far in my life I have never experienced the supreme awkwardness of having someone buy a car or a purebred show dog for me. It's even the little things, nay, especially the little things which really make me sweat. Note that when my parents purchase things for me, it is a completely different scenario. Though I am always appreciative, it ultimately causes me no more apprehension than flipping on a light switch or forgetting someone's name.

I'm not sure why I get so worked up when someone buys me something, but I do know it's been happening as long as I can remember. Whenever someone offers to spring for a check, or purchase some small thing that I've chosen not to waste my own money on, my stomach immediately tightens, as I frantically look for a way to weasel out of it. It's funny, but when someone buys something for me (generally considered in most cultures to be a kind gesture) I generally feel more disdain for them than if they're spontaneously punched me in the kidney. Having something bought for me makes me beholden to another person, a situation I try at all costs to keep removed from my friendships and aqcuaintances. By the way, yes, I am well aware that most people do not view such gestures with such nickel-and-dime horror as I do. No one said fear was rational. The worst part is that the smaller the thing, the more likely I am to forget about owing the person. If you buy me dinner I will endeavor to pay you back, with the single-minded conviction of a movie action hero avenging the murder of his family. If you buy me a pack of gum or a hot chocolate, I will almost immediately forget that I owe you.

I will however, remember the spite.

Not Testing Well

2006-01-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

I was recently doing some web-based research on the Internet Movie Database (or imdb, if you're a geek) and I came across some interesting information. We all remeber the beloved mid 90's TGIF sitcom "Family Matters". It was the kind of thing you watched when you were too young to tell the difference between good TV and bad TV (need proof? One word: Urkel). But in the course of my readings, I discovered two fairly shocking facts about the youngest sister on the show, Judy.

1) She was written out of the show after the 1st season, and never referred to again.

2) The actress who played her eventually became a porn star.

Now, I know what you're all thinking: How can a show just write out a character? (Hah, thought I was gonna talk about porn, didn't ya? Sorry, not that kind of blog) It wasn't as if young Judy was properly removed from the show by the writers. There was no sending her off to boarding school, no tragic illness or bear attack. She simply ceased to exist or ever be mentioned again. This actually happenes on shows all the time. The 1st season of "Happy Days" had an additional older brother named Chuck Cunningham who played basketball, wasn't funny, and was wisely excised in favour of more Fonzie.

What would it be like if this kind of thing happened in real life? You go to an old friend's house for dinner and once the meal starts, you notice a place at the table hasn't even been set. "Hey, where's Jacqueline?" you ask. "Jacqueline? Who's Jacqueline?" your friend's parents reply. Eventually your friend pulls you aside and explains that his younger sister was shipped off to points unknown in an effort to streamline the family, and make them more marketable. He then encourages you to never mention her again, and offers you some ice cream.

Speaking of the Internet Movie Database, I must tell you all about the talent show I was in this week. Monday night the Second City held it's annual "Holiday Party" (formerly the "Festivus Party", formerly the "It's January But We've Been Too Busy To Have A Proper Christmas Party" Party). While I can sum up the evening with one word (drunktastic!), the Talent Show bears recounting. One skit, performed by the Second City Mainstage cast, was an inspired staging of an actual posted argument from the imdb.com chat boards. The topic: Peter Jackson v. George Lucas. Instead of just reading the transcript, the cast (scripts in hand) acted it out as if it was two couples havig dinner in a restaurant, arguing back and forth. Much foaming at the mouth and ranting about wookies vs hobbit ensued. Pretty brilliant.

But the most notable part (for me anyway) was my video. My friend/ coworker Brandy and I filmed a 10 min video for the show, which we barely managed to edit in time. The video featured the Executive Producer of the Second City, Andrew Alexander (played by Brandy), and the Executive Director for the theatre, Klaus Schuller (played by me, in a bald cap). The gist was that the Second City, after having moved across the street this past year, was moving again to the adjacent parking lot. We outlined our plan to turn the theatre into a drive-in, complete with half-assed scale models and tours of the actual parking lot. Our video's homemade, low-tech vibe allowed us to get away with some rather pointed digs; including the lack of cultural diversity on the Second City stage, and the axing of the Touring Company. And the whole thing ended with us announcing that while the move was being completed, all employees would have 6 months of unpaid leave. We were very nervous about the video leading up to the screening: Was it funny? Was it too mean? Would we spoil the whole evening and never be able to show our faces at work again? But in the end, it all went splendidly. I think the best response was from Andrew and Klaus themselves, when they didn't fire us on the spot (at times our portrayals were, let's say, less than flattering). But we did get laughs (especially from Andrew and Klaus), and all through the night I had the joy of getting some very kind compliments from some very funny people.

Which is really why I do this in the first place anyway.

Put a Smile on My Face

2006-01-08T02:11:00.000-05:00

The other day, I recieved quite possibly the greatest e-mail ever. Allow me to excerpt parts of it for you:

"So, I went to look at your web log but discovered that I had deleted the email that had the link... So, I googled your name and while I did not find your blog, I did find a number of different Ian MacIntyres. I decided to tell you all about them below:

Ian MacIntyre in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo wrote an article with Bruno R. Preiss entitled The Effect of Cache on the Performance of a Multi-Threaded Pipelined RISC Processor.
*Kelly gave this Ian 3 out of 10 stars..."

I swear to God, it goes on like this for two pages. And it only gets funnier. When I first read this, I laughed out loud for several minutes, which is impressive considering that it was about 12:30 at night and my apartment has very thin walls. My personal favourite part is the ending:

"Rest assured you are still my favorite Ian"

As if there was ever any doubt.

I Have Returned

2006-01-07T18:20:00.000-05:00

So I'm here. Back in Toronto - back to my ongoing life or death struggle with the city that may one day claim my soul. I've recently become aware of a) how often I personify Toronto in my conversations ("Man, that's so like Toronto"), and b) how often I blame Toronto for any ill in my life.

- Can't find acting work - "Fuckin' Toronto."

- No time to relax - "Fuckin' Toronto."

- I forgot to set my alarm clock - "Fuckin'... Toronto."

But this year is gonna be different. This year is gonna be... 2006: Year of the Shawn!

Unfortunately, my friend Shawn called the year before I got a chance to. We've decided that 2007 will likely be the year of the Ian. But still, I'm gonna try and enjoy this year more. Take more risks, have more fun, listen to people more often. I did have a splendid trip home to Nova Scotia, and I think that's mostly why I'm in such a good mood this last week. I had some wacky misadventures since my last post, but the moment has kind of passed for me to write about them. It's been so long, that my memory has faded slightly and I wouldn't be able to offer much insight into my trip; just a run down of people and places. And honestly, who really wants to read that? If you genuinely want to hear about my trip, feel free to ask. As an actor, there's nothing I enjoy more than talking about myself.

There are, however, two major events that do bear relating.

I've recently been cast in the stage adaptation of "Lord of the Rings"!!! That's right, the multi-million dollar stage production that will soon have it's world premiere at the palatial Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto.

Wait a second. That should actually read: I've recently been cast in the stage adaptation of "Lord of the Things", the improvised low-budget spoof opening at the Bad Dog Theatre. I'm entirely enthused about doing this show. Sure, it's a non-paying gig, and there will most likely be elf-ears involved. But it will also likely be a popular show, and a weekly show at that. That, plus the fun and comraderie and all that junk.

Second order of business: I'M A BRIDESMAID!!!

Seriously.

My good friend Antonia (Toni) is getting married in October, to my other good friend Steve. It's all very sweet. So I was talking to her over the break, and our conversation went something like this:

Toni: So Steve and I really want you to be a part of the wedding party.
Ian: I'd love to! I'm, well.. 'honoured' sounds kind of cliche, but that's what I am.
Toni: Great! I was hoping you could stand for me.
Ian: Absolutely! (pause) Wait. Does that mean I'd be a bridesmaid?
Toni: (pause. looks down at the floor) Umm... yes.
(awkward pause)
Ian: Whatever. I'm there!

I'm gonna look great in taffeta.

Oh, and they've also asked me to be the MC for the reception. If this bridesmaid thing holds through, that's half of my material written right there.

Actually, I lied. One more story. My blog, my perogative. On my flight back to Toronto, I was all set to watch a DVD on my spiffy new laptop. I had chosen to rewatch the first episode of LOST; but then it occurred to me that my seat mates might not enjoy looking over my shoulder at repeated scenes of a gruesome plane crash. So I settled on "SNL: Best of Phil Hartman" (the man's a genius, I tell's ya). Now the guy in the seat next to me is what caught my attention through the flight. He was a tall, broad shouldered guy, about my age, wearing a Canadian Military uniform. Now, I try not to make superficial judgments about people, but I usually do anyway. I see a guy like this in uniform, and I instantly assume that he's some big, muscle-bound, gun-happy lunkhead who couldn't tie his shoes without someone yelling orders at him. But then I scolded myself, and thought "hey, I'm sure this guy is more than just the stereotype in my head". Then, as soon as I pull out my compact, 12" iBook, he takes one look and whips out his extra-large, widescreen laptop (I may have imagined the look). I don't really think anything of this, but as soon as he boots up I can't help but notice his desktop - A huge picture of him and a fellow soldier in their barracks, stripped to the waist, each holding a fully automatic machine gun in each arm (4 guns in total), and grinning like a pair of sweaty, slightly homoerotic cheshire cats.

Now, perhaps I'm inferring too much here. It's entirely possible that my thinly-veiled problem with authority and people in uniform is causing me to assume unflattering things about this guy. I mean, he's theoretically signing up to defend my country (and me) from any global threats that may arise. Surely he deserves my respect? So I start watching my SNL DVD, and before long I notice what he's watching. Rambo. And not just Rambo, but "Rambo III". I mean, "Rambo I" I could have let slide (it's a surprisingly gripping story about a damaged Vietnam vet trying to readjust to society). But Rambo III!? That was the point where those movies abandoned all logic, and became living jingoistic cartoons. I believe that at one point, Rambo actually kills an Afghani terrorist simply by mumbling at him.

Sorry Soldier Boy. In my mind, you too shall forever be a cartoon.

Update: Christmas 2

2005-12-28T02:23:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I know it's been a while since I wrote anything on this blog, but my holiday home in Nova Scotia has ironically been very busy. I don't have much time to post, so here's some highlights:

- Getting profoundly wasted at a friendly get together; this was brought on by a combination of cheap shiraz and my overestimating how many 'special brownies' I could reasonably ingest. I was so gone, I literally wore someone else's shoes home from the party.

- Continuing mine and Shawn's yearly tradition of watching "The Muppet Family Christmas" together. It's the one where all the muppets go out to Fozzie's mother's farm house, and are then joined by the Sesame Street gang, and the Fraggles. This time we had to watch Shawn's 15-year-old VHS tape, with the screen jumping so much that we could scarcely tell a muppet from a fraggle. It's okay: we know all the words anyway.

- Sharing my love of Spider-Man comics with my 2-year-old cousin, Jack, much to the chagrin of his wearied mother.

- Apparently my American uncle makes really great biscotti. Who knew?

- Today's Boxing Day deals: Season 1 of "LOST" for $30!!!, Season 6 of "the Simpsons" also for $30, and finally the "Best of SNL: Phil Hartman" and a wonderfully obscure little movie called "The Wrong Guy", starring Dave Foley.

- Spending most of today palling around with my buddy Rhys, which almost single-handedly pulled me out of the funk I've been in this entire trip. The greatest thing I've heard all week was said by his delightful fiance Andrea. She was showing me the gift Rhys had made for her, a Zombie-Apocalypse-Survival-Kit (I'm serious), complete with machete. While showing me this she remarked to her future husband, as if stating the most obvious thing in the world, "You gave me a machete. I love you". That honestly warmed my heart in a way no Jimmy Stewart film ever could.

There's more anecdotage, and I'm forgetting most of it. But I'm sure that if I'm interested enough I'll do a follow-up post. Oh, and tomorrow, I'm going to call someone and suggest something really foolish. Wish me luck.

Merry Christmas break.

Update: Christmas

2005-12-21T17:39:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the last blog enrty was a little dark. No that's not the word I'm looking for. Whiny, that's what it was. So I guess it behooves me to talk about something a little happier. 'Tis the season and all.

I've been back in Nova Scotia for about 2 days now, and the trip has already been illuminating. The first thing I did yesterday was meet up with Mark and Shawn and go to the mall, which I feel pretty much sets the tone for these trips home. It was great, we joked about old comedy movies and went last minute Christmas shopping. It's strange though - every time I come home, I feel less and less like I'm a part of things here. Over the last few months progress has marched forward; people have gotten married, had children, started careers. I guess just because home is always on my mind while I'm away, doesn't mean that I'm on home's mind. As we get older, we all acknowlege that certain things are going to be lost; I guess no one ever realizes how fast that happens. It's like everwhere I look here in Dartmouth, I'm reminded of something I'll never do or an experience I'll never have again.

Of course, I'm mainly talking about my friends - things have been entirely normal with my family. My Mom is baking goods at an alarming rate, my Dad and brother are very much themselves (in a good way), and I've already discovered where most of the Christmas presents are hidden.

I've only been home for 3 days, but I already want to run away so that I can process everything that's happened. Does that make me weird?

On my mind

2005-12-16T21:52:00.000-05:00

So with one notable exception, this has been kind of a lousy week. I would blame it on winter, but I'm not really a big believer in SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). In fact, I think most professional psychiatry is bunk.

No wait. Once again, I've confused myself with Tom Cruise.

Actually, I do have a healthy respect for the psychiatric profession, and I do believe in SAD. I just don't think I have it. I love winter, and it's never really gotten me down in the past. Naw, I think it has more to do with the general stagnation of my career, and my not knowing what to do with that. I read an article in the New York Times recently about how Undergraduate Acting Programs, which were only introduced in the late 60's and subsequently popularized in the 80's, are churning out aspiring actors at an alarming rate. It's not that acting is merely a competitive profession; there are just literally hundreds of times more actors than there are jobs for them. I mean, it's one thing to decide to make acting your life, and resign yourself to the quiet nobility of making very little money in exchange for career fulfillment. The reality is, the odds of even getting to a point where you're making shit money are mind-numbingly small. Especially in Canada. And it's not like these acting graduates are untalented. Lots of talented actors get no work. Imagine you're a casting director: You're casting a part in a commercial with 1 speaking line. The agents in the area submit anywhere from 500-1000 headshots and resumes for you to sift through, of any performer who is even remotely appropriate for the part. You choose a hundred or more guys to audition, and then have to watch a never-ending stream of no-doubt talented performers file in one at a time, and all exclaim how they love dog food, or something. And that's just for a crappy commercial; it's not like they're looking for the next big movie star. No doubt many of these people are capable, but they just don't have a chance. The cruel irony of trying to be an actor to express yourself and do work that you love, is the odds of getting to even audition for a project like that are a million to one.

The really crappy part is being surrounded by people who are all doing better career-wise than you. Like say, working the desk at a successful comedy theatre. Last week someone mentioned to me that they squeezed in a quick commercial, "to pay some holiday bills. You know how it is". "Not really," I responded, "but it sounds nice". That's the funny part. Since no one's getting rich in Canada, everyone complains constantly about their particular lot. It's just that people usually forget that there are hundreds of individuals who are less fortunate; these are generally the people on the receiving end of the complaints.

If it sounds like I'm bitter, it's probably because I am. In this business, you have basically 3 options:

1) Get on the bitter train.

2) Become riddled with self-doubt.

3) Quit.

The usual progression is 1, then a lot of 2, then an agonizingly slow progression to 3.

I'm not sure why I'm suddenly in such a bad mood about this now. There was an article in the Eye Weekly magazine this week about a really great sketch comedy troupe. I guess I just read that, and can't help but beat myself up for not working as hard. Or wondering if I have any talent whatsoever. See, this side of the entertainment business (self-produced material) is the wickedly ironic analogue to auditioning for work. When you're creating your own work, the buck really does stop with you.

Uhhh... Merry Christmas everyone!

Point of view

2005-12-13T00:49:00.000-05:00

I just spent 5 minutes in the bathroom trying to get my contact out of my left eye, only to realize that it had fallen out several minutes ago and was sitting in the sink. Clawing at my own eye frantically, until hot stinging tears welled up, only to realize my lens was long since removed.

Buy it Tuesday

2005-12-11T14:28:00.000-05:00

I don't really have a lot to write about today. So I'm going to pick one of the topics that I've been saving (I have several).

DVD's. They bug me. Specifically, the way they're marketed. Back in the day (I'm talking the early 90's here folks) not many people collected movies. If you had a lot of VHS you were a serious collector, a nerd, a freak if you will. Movies sold on VHS, but the lion's share of the profits were still made at the box office. Enter the late 90's and the DVD. All of a sudden, everyone has a large and conspicuous shelf of DVD's in their living room. Everyone has become a collector. And movie companies are making a huge chunk of their profits off the ever-expanding DVD market. You've seen the ads: "War of the Worlds: Buy it Tuesday". Fuck you, Movie Voice Guy. That wasn't a sales pitch, that was an order. I hate how release dates for DVD's has become common knowledge. The only reason to know a release date is so that you can buy it at the earliest possible juncture. And the reason these companies push people to buy movies as soon as they can is because they know that in 3 months, no one will care. And I'm not immune: I too bought "Kill Bill: Vol 1" the day it was released, and how many times have I watched it? 1. I plunked down $25.00 to basically add another notch to my "DVD belt".

Now, people making more money than me isn't what's bothering me (if it was, I'd be angry every day, all the time). What bothers me is how much money we seem willing to give to these companies. TV shows on DVD. Until about 5 years ago, TV was on TV, and that was it. You watched it, and enjoyed it, and maybe caught it in reruns. If you really liked a show, you might tape it to watch again later. But the idea of owning a TV show never really occurred to people. And we got along fine. I've never owned an episode of "Friends" in my life, and I was getting by fine. But now that it's possible for us to own a TV show, we feel like we should.

So here people are, spending hundreds (and let's face it, thousands) of dollars on DVD collections which for the most part gather dust. And everyone has that fantasy of owning a bunch of DVD's, and impressing people with their collections. You picture people coming over to your house, marveling at the size and eclectic choice of films. As if this showcase of our tastes will give people a window into our unique souls. "What, you own "Citizen Kane" and Season 3 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"! Truly you are a more enlightened person than I!". Every time we buy another DVD, we imagine the day when it will be exactly that movie that someone wants to watch, allowing us to whisk it off our shelf save the day with our superior taste.

But that almost never happens. 3 months ago, I sold off about a quarter of my movie collection simply because I realized I hadn't watched any of those films in 3 years or more. Nowadays, I really think hard before I buy a movie "Will I watch this over and over, or will the thrill wear off as soon as I've gotten my purchase home". Put simply, do I want to own, or do I just want to buy it?

Yesterday Yesterday Yesterday

2005-12-09T18:29:00.001-05:00

Just now I was walking across King St. at John, and I looked over at the hot dog stand I often frequent. Surrounding it were a dozen or so people, holding signs so that passing motorists would see. Turns out the were trying to protest the on behalf of the two Canadian hostages being held in Iraq. One of them had a sign that read "FREE THE HOSTAGES", but from across the street in the dark I thought it read "FREE THE HOTDOGS". Interestingly enough, even though I thought they were protesting said hotdog vendor (as opposed to near said vendor) it still made me go buy a hotdog 5 minutes later.

Last night was our first solo-produced Approximately 3 Peters show, and it went fan-tastically. We had a good little house, and the first act, My First Crush, turned out to be great. And my roomate, Greg, totally kicked ass on the ghetto-light and sound system that the Oasis has (our sound was being run off of his discman).

I don't like producing shows. I enjoy seeing them come together, and making my own opportunities to perform. I do not enjoy how anal-retentive and crabby I become right before the show. One thing I've been discovering about myself recently is how much of a control freak I can be when I work with others. I offer to take on too much responsibility, then snap at people when I get stressed. Hmmm... sounds like someone I know.

Oh, and the "Funniest Thing to Go Wrong at the Last Minute Award" goes to the Eye Weekly Magazine. The listing I sent to all the papers read thusly:

ROCK HARDER! Approximately 3 Peters (Peter Gal, Pete Hill, and Ian MacIntyre) presents an evening of sketch comedy, w/ My First Crush! Dec. 8th, 8pm. $5. The Oasis, 294 College. 416-975-0845

I understand that comedy listings are a free service, and that they need to be edited for space. But come on Eye Weekly:

SKETCH NIGHT Feat Ian Macintire. 9pm. $5. Oasis, 294 College. 416-975-0845.

Forget that they put the show time as 9pm (instead of 8pm). "Ian Macintire"?!?! Not only do I look like a megalomaniac, but I look like I can't even spell my own name properly.

(on a holiday appropriate note) Good grief.

Thursday Thursday Thursday

2005-12-06T00:57:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. For the record, it's not really Thursday. It's actually Tuesday. But I'm writing to tell you all about this coming Thursday night, when my sketch group and I will be presenting not just any show, but our first self-promoted sketch show. The title:

Peter Gal, Pete Hill, and Ian MacIntyre are...

Approximately 3 Peters

in.....

ROCK HARDER!!!

featuring Toronto favourites My First Crush!

The show will be this Thursday, Dec. the 8th, at the Oasis (294 College St) at 8pm.

Admission to this extravaganza will cost you $5.

So that's it. Come on, come all. Preferably all. So this being a self-indulgent blog and all, I feel that I owe you a little more insight into the show than just a sales pitch. So here it is:

- I don't actually know if My First Crush (the other group) are any good. I don't know if they're bad either - I've never seen them perform. I just know that I've improvised with one of the guys in their group, and he's really funny. So I guess I choose to assume that he is representative of his peers.

- We're doing about 40% new material for this show, which is kind of exciting. Scott: it's definitely enough stuff you won't have seen to be worth coming.

- This show will see the return of my old standby character, Dr. W.H. Waldorf. For the 5 of you out there reading this who know what I'm talking about, this may be a good or bad thing.

- If the night goes well, we'll close with a big group-jam improv set. I have no assurances that this will take place.

- This is the first show I've ever organized here in Toronto. And I'm not nervous about it (well, a little), but I do hope to continue doing so in the future.

So that's it. Hope to see you all (or some, even) there. And now some "OK Computer" to put me to sleep. Cheers.

Big Saturday Post

2005-12-03T11:09:00.000-05:00

When I was about 11 or 12 years old, I became really scared of the idea of heaven. Not of heaven itself, that has always sounded like a swell place to me. What specifically made me uneasy was the idea of life going on forever. One day I actually started thinking about the idea of the afterlife stretching on forever, and never actually coming to an end. And I don't mean this in a jokey "How many conversations can you have with Jimi Hendrix before heaven gets boring kind of way". Just the idea of there being no end scared me. Because if there's no end to something, I can't imagine there being a purpose to it either. And I guess that's still one of my biggest fears in my adult/ mortal life - not having a purpose.

So yeah, when I was a young adult anytime that I would think about this idea of infinity that I couldn't possibly comprehend (note to my readers: I 'm not too much farther along yet), I would feel a little bit dizzy. If I thought too long, I would actually feel the earth spiraling out from under me while my brain tried to come to a comfortable solution. I haven't actually thought about this in a while, but this week I've been reading "Slaughterhouse Five" and it's reminded me of what little I know about Theoretical Physics. So apparently Einstein has said that time is an illusion; a way for us to see the universe with out our heads exploding. I may be remembering this wrong, but I'm pretty sure that he meant past, present, and future are irrelevant - that all things exist at once all the time. So maybe that's the answer to my theological dilemma - math. Science and Religion: Working together to help Ian sleep at night.

So I bought a laptop this week, and I'm pretty jazzed about it. Ironically, I'm not writing this post from said laptop - I'm at work in the box office. I was going to wait to post something until I could post from my laptop, but then I realized I would already be beholden to my machine. And that's exactly what the machines want! First we're just rearranging our schedules for them; next thing we're sending someone back into the past to fight the machines and prevent Judgment Day.

Back to the laptop, I kind of went nutty and I got a 12" iBook, and I already enjoy it a great deal. There's not really a whole lot else to say about it - I'm just in that phase where I wanna show off my new toy. Bear with me. Props to my friend Andrew, who set me up with a BUNCH of Mac software last night. And to the good people at Best Buy, who seem to think that I'm deserving of good credit (of course, if most people woke up tomorrow with what I consider to be good credit, they'd jump out a window).

I love it, but I don't trust it.

Alright Ramblers

2005-12-01T16:25:00.000-05:00

I swear at least three times a week, I pace around my apartment, taking inventory of how much money I could get selling most of my possessions, and imagining what cities I could move to. My current favourite options are Vancouver, Chicago, and New York. Of course, then I realize it's actually me that I'm frustrated with, and moving to another city won't change a thing. Eventually, I'll get just as frustrated no matter where I hang my hat.

Grumble...

November the 28th

2005-11-28T14:18:00.000-05:00

I had no fancy title for today's post, so I figured today's date would have to do. A friend of mine in Philadelphia called me this morning to tell me that she got an agent - so congratulations to you, Kelly. I missed the call when I was in the shower, getting ready for my two auditions this morning. One was for Lotto 649, the other was a callback for the Wendy's commercial from last week.

The Lotto commercial was surprisingly fun: myself and two other 20-somethings played the kids, surprising our father during a board meeting with balloons, cake, and the news that we had just won the lottery. While myself and my 'siblings' waited for our cue, we speculated amongst ourselves about our family history - were we all the same age because we were triplets, or were we adopted? We also noted the cake that had been provided for the audition. It was the most generic cake we had ever seen, suitable for any occasion from "You passed you driver's test!" to "We're sorry your cat died". For some reason we also joked about the contents of the cake, suggesting it contained meat. During one take, my attractive redheaded "sister" happily exclaimed "We got you a meat cake daddy!". I think I was the only one who heard her.

The Wendy's callback was much stranger. The gist of the commercial is that I (the dashingly handsome everyman customer) try to order chicken nuggets, but am told that I can only order a chicken burger by the embittered counter employee. We wrestle over the microphone, until I finally give in. Now the guy I read with last week is a fantastic improviser I know from the Bad Dog Theatre, so naturally we both had fun and the audition went well. He played the part very deadpan, which is funny considering that the final commercial will have his character wearing a giant chicken suit. Today, however, I was paired with two different partners. The first had a kind of stoic intensity suitable for prison movies, and actually managed to scare me. A little. The second guy squeezed my hand when we were wrestling over the imaginary microphone, hard enough that he seemed convinced it would eventually yield a diamond. It's amazing how physically inappropriate some actors will be in audition situations. One improv book that I read actually had an audition section labeled "Don't Hit Your Scene Partners".

Speaking of acting, last week I auditioned for a student film. While I didn't get cast in the lead role I originally read for, I did get offered a small speaking role as a convenience-store clerk. I accepted the part (it would have meant one more ACTRA Apprentice credit) and went to my first production meeting yesterday. However, last night the dirctor called me, and informed me that my part had been written out of the script, thanks for coming out, etc. I'm not so bummed about losing the opportunity to give up a Saturday night and work for free; what gets me is that I'll never know if I made some mistake or said something which caused them to remove my part from the entire screenplay. I know it sounds crazy, but remember what I said about taking things in this business personally?

So now I'm at work, waiting out the first day of my last two weeks. And I'm trying to figure out what colour to paint my bedroom. I'm thinking blue, but then, I usually think blue. Any thoughts?

Marketing Manager No More!

2005-11-26T17:28:00.000-05:00

I think there is no lower form of communication in the universe than radio advertising. Without the ability to catch the eye, radio advertisers only recourse is to be as loud and obnoxious as possible. Grumble.

So bad news first: my cushy desk job as Marketing Manager at the Second City finished up this week. It was temporary, and it turns out there just wasn't enough work for me to do anymore. But this is the best possible way to leave a job - It was the position's fault, not mine. As far as they're concerned, I'm still the model employee. Had the job gone on much longer, I surely would have reached new heights of futility, and then it would have been my fault. So now, I'm back where I started. Kind of. I'm a box office jockey once more, which should afford me lots more time for posting on this blog. Unfortunately, now I'm forced to put my money where my mouth is. For the last few weeks, I've been bitching steadily about how much time my desk job ate up, and how I wasn't working hard enough on "my art". Well, looks like I won't have much of a choice now. Actually, that's not true. Laziness is always an option.

On to the good news: I got a phone call this week that put a smile on my face. The unexpected ones are always the best. And I just got off the phone with Halifax, and my plane details are all sewn up. I'll be arriving home on Westjet Dec. the 19th, and staying until Jan. 4th. Which is admittedly, a little longer than I wanted to vacation for, but any other date would have seen a $200 price jump. So I'll have to live with a few more days of Nova Scotian hospitality - donairs and home cooked meals.

I was doing an improv show last night, and got in a joke I was pretty proud of. Allow me to share it with you. Now the point of improv, contrary to popular belief, is not to make jokes at any cost. The most satisfying improvisation occurs when people commit to scenes, taking the time to explore relationships and heighten situations. It's easy to go out on stage and make a cheap dick joke: try stretching that dick joke into a 4-minute scene. Ideally, the "funny" in a scene should be the by-product of a well-conducted story. So anyways, back to my story. Last night we were doing a "conducted play", which is just like a regular play except the director is calling out directions and story lines to you as you make it all up. Our play centered around a car dealership where the head salesman had been cheating on his pregnant wife. I was playing the mechanic, in a scene with said pregnant wife. At one point it had been determined that she was having a robot baby (which happens surprisingly often in improv). She had come to my garage to express her concerns over the baby's health:

HER: (sitting) I'm worried about my baby, Randy.

ME: Well, let's take a look under the hood.

I immediately lowered myself onto my back and slid under her chair, like a mechanic would with a car. I couldn't see her face, but apparently my scene partner was laughing pretty hard. As was the crowd. Yaay me!

So that's me for this week. This post goes out a Mr. Scott Stephenson, who complained last night that I haven't posted enough this week. Suck it up, crybaby. Till next time, this is Ian MacIntyre wishing you love, peace, and souuuuulllllll!

Sigh...

2005-11-23T17:56:00.000-05:00

Literally as I was posting that last tirade, my agent called me. I have a Wendy's commercial audition tomorrow. Stupid irony...

Always Coca-Cola

2005-11-23T17:43:00.000-05:00

So I went to see a movie last night, and before it starts we get the now-requisite 20 minutes of commercials (remember the days when you just got an ad for snacks in the lobby? Seems almost quaint by comparison). Now, I usually make every effort to ignore commercials when I'm watching TV. I've become so skilled at avoiding them that I can channel surf through an entire commercial break, until my keenly honed sixth sense tells me to return to my channel just in time to rejoin my show. Years of practice, my friends. However, when a commercial is playing in front of you in a darkened theatre on a 40-foot screen, it kind of demands your attention.

The one commercial that really caught my eye you're no doubt familiar with: a crowd of fresh-faced 20-somethings race through an indeterminate European city, arriving in the town square. They immediately don brown jackets, and sketch an enourmous chalk outline of a cola bottle on the pavement. Finally, an aerial view ties it all together: they all stand inside the bottle outline and then stream into a similarly-drawn glass outline, creating the illusion from the air of Coca-Cola being poured into a cup. Looks kind of impressive, actually.

Except the commericial is filmed in a jerky, faux-documetary style that leaves me entirely cold. It's all made to look like some spontaneously grand youthful experience: A veritable youthquake (some marekting term I heard) of people impulsively declaring their love for Coca-Cola in an elaborate peice of performance art. It would be pretty nifty, except for the fact that it's a fucking commercial. We're talking about one of the largest multi-billion dollar branded corporations in the entire world trying to pretend like they're the damn Burning Man Festival. I know it's just a commercial, and I know that Coke doesn't actually think kids are going to run around Europe creating these elaborate displays, but the whole thing just makes my sack itch (hey Mom, remember the show we saw with that 'sack' line?). If Coke wants to sell me pop, then go nuts: I already drink it. But if you're gonna have people sell your wares at least have the stones to make it look like a commercial; dont try and hide behind some hip, 'street cred' notion of fake-authenticity and think I won't notice.

Oh, and for the record, the movie I went to see was "Walk the Line". A little uneven overall, but I liked it. I think you'll like it too, Dad.

Bad Habits Suck

2005-11-22T15:45:00.000-05:00

When I was home in Nova Scotia two weeks ago, I had my first day in months without coffee. I'd slept in at my parents, and only ventured out late in the afternoon. Eventually I met up with friends at the mall, only to experience a general feeling of fogginess and a headache like my brain being sucked through a straw. I complained to my friend, who shot back an immediate diagnosis: "You're going through caffine withdrawl".

I was shocked. Was I actually addicted to coffee? It would make sense, I used to boast about how much coffee I drank in university. And since working at Starbucks I've found Tim Hortons offerings to be watered down and insufficient. Now, the idea of being addicted to anything doesn't sit well with me, but since coffee is a self-inflicted drug I was doubly annoyed. I've been trying to cut back recently, but even as I type now I can't stop thinking about venturing out for my second cup of the day. Possibly to the Second Cup. It's right around the corner...

Speaking of bad habits, there's someone I keep thinking about, and I really shouldn't be. Anyone got any suggestons for that?

It's already fallen apart

2005-11-21T15:59:00.000-05:00

Well crap. Three days I've had this blog, and I already missed a day. I guess it was inevitable. Not that I had any specific notions about posting every single day, but this still sets a bad precedent. Ah well, I guess you were right, Riles. This is harder than it looks.

So today I got an e-mail from a friend, reminding me of a conversation we had only a few weeks ago.

"I'm surprised I have to say. I faintly remember a conversation in which we berated the conusuming irrationality of blogs and technology in general."

In my defense, my complaint about blogs was how people post personal details on them, and then act surprised when this blows up in their faces. But there's the rub - how do you make your blog interesting unless you include personal, slacious, and dare I say - sexy details? (note to my mom: I'm not going to reveal sexy details). Well sorry to disappoint, but since this blog will likely only ever be read by friends and family, my revelations on here will likely remain fairly generic. Though who knows? Like the famous stand up comedian who draws upon personal experiences for their material, perhaps if I draw a real audience, my policy may change (if you're wondering what constitutes a real audience, I basically mean strangers. In other words, if you are reading this, you probably don't count). What a thought - the less personal my audience is, the more personal I get.

So I borrowed a spiffy book from a co-worker ("Guru: My Days with Del Close" by Jeff Griggs). For those not in the know, Del Close was a Second City legend: an improviser, director, teacher, genius, junkie, and pagan. One of my favourite quotes about improv thus far:

"To a child, apathy is a greater abuse than anything that can be done physically. It's the same with your scene work. Lack of emotion is lethal. Love, anger, hatred, lust - all go a long way to show urgency, desire, and caring in every scene." Del Close

So as I'm reading I noticed that my boss has highlighted sections of his copy. I love seeing the random passages that other people highlighted, and guessing at their significance. Inventing my own reasons why someone else found something important enough to be worth remembering. It's almost as interesting as the book itself.

I can't imagine why anyone buys new books.

All about Ian

2005-11-19T14:17:00.000-05:00

So something isn't right here. This is my blog, why aren't I talking about myself yet? So this is me, in my "happy, smiley, suitable-for-commercials" headshot. I've been auditioning off and on lately; this week was 2 student film auditions (which went terribly), and 1 KFC Commercial audition (which was... odd). The student films went poorly, namely on account of my total lack of preparation. I'm still amazed that I could recieve the audition sides days in advance, yet still find myself with absolutely no time to prepare. Which sucks, because I felt like I was right for one of the parts (that of a sardonic early 20's loafer). The other part (a late 20's yuppie who discovers his murdered wife) was a bit of a stretch. Especially considering that I left work, biked in the rain for 20 minutes, only to discover that I had to do that particular scene. With no preparation. Needless to say, lots of empty shouting was the best I could muster.

On the other hand, I've been nice and busy recently with my sketch-comedy trio, Approximately 3 Peters. This is the part where I would ordinarily link you to our website, but we're not that organized. Yet. However we did have a couple of decent shows at Corktown Comedy and at the Rivoli's SketchComedy Lounge. After that we had some great shows at the Bad Dog Theatre's Sketch Night and Theatresports night. I'm really enjoying that theatre (Bad Dog); great social-club feeling. That, and I'm starting to get my improv legs back a bit, which feels nice.

Still, it's hard to be in a city (and especially an industry) that constantly makes you doubt absolutely everything about yourself. It's like the one profession where you shouldn't take anything personally invariably leads to taking things the most personally. It doesn't help that Toronto is a town that encourages everyone to get wrapped up in themselves. Everyone is too busy for everyone else, and then they all complain that there is nobody around.

I just ate a really great Italian sausage with pickles, bacon bits, and corn relish. Really puts thing in perspective.

I too have a lame-ass blog

2005-11-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

Wow. My very first blog. I imagine one day in the future my children and their children's children will be issued these at birth (along with a pair of moon boots and some SPF 400 sun-block). Think about it - every single person on the planet will have an ongoing record of all their thoughts, ideas and petty grievances from birth to death (for the purpose of this scenario, "every single person" means "every single person born in an industrialized, first world nation").

So what is the best part about the blog? Is it how it allows the average man or woman to have their voice potentially reach millions of people, all over the world? Is it the way that cutting-edge political blogs have reshaped the way we look at the traditional media, cutting out the middle man and disseminating inforamtion as soon as it happens, raw and unedited? Not even close - it's the revisionist history that appeals to me. Like this one time, a friend of mine had said some... questionable things about her mother online. Long story short - turns out old people know how to use computers as well. Who knew? So what did my friend do when faced with this awkward situation? What any self respecting historian would do - she erased the post. Let's see you prove my incriminating words now.

So that's why I love the blog. It's everyone's own personal selective history.

And for the record, my Mom is fan-tastic.