This Post is Way Too Long

I want to start today by bringing your attention to the visitation calendar I've added to the top right of this page. Peep it if you're trying to get up to Club Shar at any point.

Next up, I want to make good on my promise of trying to answer any questions asked.

All that stuff they say about journalism teaching people to write concisely is bullshit though, because this answer turned out to be somewhat of a novel. It probably won’t be interesting to everybody, so if you don’t care about this stuff, just skip all the stuff between the asterisks and check out some new, juicy details on a few of the moments I’ve particularly enjoyed up here.

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Da Q: “Submitted for your honest opinion: How have you found the improv up yonder? Compare and contrast to comedy wars. What variations on the typical actor models (i.e. white suburban male, funny-unattractive girl, safe black guy) are you finding? React and discuss. - Ross Taylor”

Da A: The improv that I have seen here so far has been truly excellent. At Second City, the cast of the main stage show does a 20-40 minute improv set after their show every night except Friday and Monday; same for the cast of the e.t.c. show, except they don’t do Wednesday either. We’ve attended one of these sets every night possible except for this last Wednesday (which I’ll get to later in this post), and each time, they have been great. There has been no disparity in quality, as far as I’m concerned, between the cast of the main stage and the e.t.c. cast. Both groups have definitely lived up to the Second City name and the hype. The touring company actually did a set on Monday, and they were solid, but not as good as either of the other two, in my opinion. We’re receiving comp tickets next week and using those to attend the actual shows and not just the improv sets, so we’ll see what that’s like.

It’s very difficult to compare this stuff to Comedy Wars due to the format of these sets. There are basically no short-form games being played. All that happens is they take a suggestion, improvise scenes until they feel they can’t any more (sometimes running out of time before this happens), they get another suggestion (if necessary) and improvise some more scenes, and then cap off the night by playing Freeze. The only short-form games I’ve seen played since moving here, aside from these end-of-set displays of Freeze mastery, were at an improv jam we attended at iO last Friday night. This is a clusterfuck of a situation where everyone in the building is encouraged to come on stage and play. It starts at midnight, so the majority of the people there are already intoxicated, and any potential for humor (almost always created by one of the house team members participating or one of the more adept iO students in the house that night) is basically guaranteed to be ignored and lost or trampled all over by someone with too much liquid courage and not enough comic sensibility.

Now I don’t know whether it’s due to the fact that ya’ll are used to working together and thus have chemistry, or if it’s because all of the people at the jam are drunk, but without question, I would much rather attend a Comedy Wars show than one of these improv jams. In my honest opinion, you Silly Soldiers consistently perform at a level that is well above average and, in my mind, ya’ll are a steal for the price of free.

As for any variations on the typical actor models you mentioned, I suppose there are a few. I’ve definitely seen all the ones you listed in these casts, but there are also a few funny AND good-looking females (as well as a few who lack one or both qualities) and there is one Latino guy who never plays the race card and who I’m rooting for to move on to even bigger things in the near future.

The one thing missing and what this town is really aching for, though, Ross, is a red-headed gentleman from Missourah.

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Alright so I’ve been having some rather ridiculous experiences already and I actually feel like I’m starting to lose track a little bit. What follows are some cliff notes, more for my benefit than yours really.

- On our first night here, we met a homeless man named Jasper who told us how much he resented his homeless brethren who hold out cups and ask for change. He then proceeded to beat box for us and was able to provide change for a $20 bill. Jasper, if you’re reading this at the public library, thank you for inspiring me/being the basis of the first joke I wrote since moving to Chicago. I performed it at the open mic I did Wednesday (which I’ll get to here in a little bit) and people clapped when I mentioned you, Jasper. Keep your head up and your box beating.

- We had a European taxi driver Friday night who was a little too interested in which of us had sexed it up recently. He then made it clear, while staring not at the road but at all of the females walking from bar to bar as we rode down a very busy street, that any guy who fails to get laid in this city is basically hopeless. Consummate professional and excellent motivator.

- Guy who looked like Big Triece from Adventures in Hollyhood at the iO jam Friday night: “Spit on it.”

- Old man at e.t.c. improv set Sunday night: “Tiny wiener.”

- In a matter of 10 seconds (tops), I completely blew any chance we might have had with two very attractive young ladies who approached us as we walked home from Second City late Saturday night. We’re all still very amused by the story here (which is totally worth the missed opportunity as far as me and my warped priorities are concerned) and I don’t think it’s something I will ever live down. Long story short, these girls asked us if we knew of anywhere we could all go to get some good late night food. New to the city and unaware of any open restaurants in the area/trying to be helpful and generous/never having been smooth in my life, I almost immediately informed them that we had frozen pizzas at our apartment. They looked at each other, simultaneously went from bubbly and friendly to completely disinterested, agreed to maybe just go home and order some pizza, and scurried away, presumably congratulating one another as they crossed the street on another rape successfully avoided.

- As I mentioned before, I performed some stand up at an open mic Wednesday night. I thought I was going to be doing a 5-minute set, but the high turnout of 38 people wanting to perform led to each of us only getting 3 minutes on stage. It was not easy having to basically cut my routine (which I’d been reciting to myself all day like a crazy person) in half and rework all of the transitions in my head during the first four people’s sets. I wasn’t especially pleased with my performance, but it definitely could have been a lot worse. You all know I’m not that a very confident person, but my set was easily in the top half of that group and I was far from the worst there. Mission accomplished.

- We witnessed a highly unreasonable and unnecessary but still very heated altercation while leaving the open mic. It’s going to be hard to explain here, but basically it was two black females in their mid-to-late 20s vs. a middle-aged married white couple. The argument was initially over which car should be allowed to drive on the left side of the road and then about which car needed to move so the other could get by. This occurred on a two-lane street with plenty of room not only for cars to be parked on one side, but also for the black driver’s reinforcements to speed up and hop out of their van five minutes after she called them mid-insult. I didn’t catch anybody’s name, but there were multiple “stupid ass bitches” involved.

I'm off to pick up a disposable camera roll that dates back to June and includes some shots from today's post-orientation group gathering, so be on the lookout for those this weekend. Thanks for reading, if any of you actually made it all the way to this point.