Going for broke...literally.

*This post is an add-on (or an expansion pack, if you will) to the post below, so please make sure you read that one as well.*

In the aftermath of the craziness that was this weekend, it was brought to my attention that many great events were happening in the next few months and tickets to those events were being snatched up at a rather rapid pace.

So always one to throw caution to the wind, I decided to pony up, max out my bank account, and secure tickets to these events and worry about how to pay for them later (man, I hope my parents don't read this post). That being said, if you are attending any of the events below, let me know so we can meet up before, during, or after.

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Jason Mraz @ The Metro - April 9

Finally returning from a year-long hiatus , Mr. A-Z is back touring to promote his upcoming album, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things. He's releasing three EP's in advance of the album, which I've yet to get my hands on, but I heard some of the demos on iTunes and it sounds awesome. It also includes Steph's and my song, "I'm Yours." I surprised her with tickets the last time he came to Chicago and almost surprised her again with tickets to this show, but she eventually got it out of me.

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Kids In The Hall: As Live As We'll Ever Be @ Chicago Theatre - May 19

It's truly rare anymore that these legendary comedians go out on tour together as they each have so many individual projects going on. I was lucky enough to get tickets to their last Chicago show, Tour of Duty (which also produced a DVD), back in 2002 and it was this great mix of comedy, nostalgia, and a surprising amount of new material. That gets me excited to see what they'll unleash after six years. There are always rumors about an as yet untitled movie project that they're working on (according to the documentary Kids In The Hall: Same Guys, Different Dresses, was going to be titled, Not Brain Candy - a self-depricating reference to their cult classic, Brain Candy, which did poor at the box office, but found new life on VHS/DVD), but that project has yet to surface after all these years. So right now, it looks like seeing them live is the only way to relive getting your head crushed, seeing Gavin paint, and being taken away in one of those....oh, what are they called? .....With the flashing lights and the sirens? ....No, not an ambulance....

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Dave Matthews Band @ Toyota Park - June 6

I was extremely excited to see that my favorite band was going to be in Chicago the day before my birthday this year and, ironically enough, it will be my 32nd DMB show the day before my 32nd birthday. I'm not even going to begin to explain the connection I have to this band and their music as I'm sure you all have bands that you connect with on different levels as well, and I'm not going to bore you with my story. Needless to say, every concert of theirs I've been to is a re-energizing experience and I've always taken - and continue to get - something different from every show I've been to. It's been the posh thing to bash this band over the past few years and just write them off as "college rock," but they put on one of the best concerts you'll ever see and I can think of no other group that personifies the term "band" more than them.

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Boston Red Sox VS. Chicago White Sox
@ U.S. Celluar Field - August 10

After 22 years, I'm finally going to get to see the Red Sox play live. I can't tell you how excited that makes me. Steph said recently that she's always wanted to go to a MLB game and I couldn't think of a better way than to see my favorite team (and the best team in baseball right now) only a few hours away at The Cell. Granted, I like the Cubs and have seen them play numerous times and could've taken her to see a game at Wrigley Field (which I guarantee you we will do some day), but the timing just worked out perfectly to finally get to a Red Sox game. There weren't that many seats left and the ones that were weren't anything stellar, but it was just a matter of committing to it and finally having the time to get up there and see them. I went on a pilgrimage of sorts this summer with a good friend of mine to Boston (see earlier post) as he had a job interview and didn't want to fly, and I had always wanted to visit the town. While there, I took a tour of Fenway Park that was just incredible and it lit a fire in me to really make an effort to see them play. It just timed out so well in August that I couldn't pass it up. Now watch it get rained out...

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So that's the update as to where and what I'll be doing this summer. As I mentioned, let me know if any of you are attending any of these so we can meet up. I'm just trying to find something to go to in July now so I can do something every month (if that happens, I'll update this post). :-)

Take care of yourselves and each other.

What a weekend...

Just got back from what could easily be described as one of the best weekends I've had in Chicago in a very long time.

(*This is a rather long update - one that even Pete would be proud of - so run and get a blanky and some cocoa)

The weekend began with Steph accompanying me to Chicago where we crashed with our most gracious hosts, Corey & Mo (as enthusiastically seen above). The weekend began with game night at some friend's of Corey & Mo's, and many inside jokes were the result of a raucous game of Catch Phrase followed by the new game sweeping the nation, Corey Rittmaster's Celebrity! (name pending). Needless to say, the phrase, "I felt myself go poo," will be forever embedded in our minds. We wound the night down by relaxing at their condo watching all of the late scores from the NCAA tournament trickle in over SportsCenter.

Saturday began with the exciting news that Corey & Mo's show, entitled corey & mo: at the end of the day, was being considered for a big improv show coming up and they needed to throw a press kit together pronto. So we all fired up our respective laptops and got to work - they creating the bios sheet and myself whipping up a flier for their show, the results of which you can see to the right. Corey & Mo workshopped some of their material at The Playground Theater and are working the second half at the same venue very soon. They're also going to be performing their show as part of ComedySportz Quad Cities presents Gilda's Weekend of Laughter in a few weeks, so be sure to check it out if you're in the area. So after much proofing and re-editing, the press kit was finished and Steph and I wandered off to Skewers for lunch.

Next up was the reason we had made the journey in the first place and that was to take part in CSz Chicago's March Madness tournament as the representatives of CSzQC. Before the show, we headed to the Goose Island Pub, a place I used to frequent when I lived in Wrigleyville. We watched the Kansas Jayhawk game, as Corey & Mo are from Kansas City and rabid fans, and I enjoyed a long awaited Goose Island Root Beer (which is phenomenal if you have never had one before). We met up there with our manager, Jeff A., and his wife, April, had a quick dinner, and then headed to the brand new CSz Chicago theatre.

It was Corey, Mo, Jeff A., and myself against a Chicago team that had won the most matches during their tournament. Out of the four CSz shows I have done in Chicago in my 14 years of doing this stuff, this was easily the best experience of them all. Not just because we had a solid show, but also because this was the best reception I think we have ever had as a visiting team to this city that is known for being a bit stiff when it comes to improv because it's the town where it started so expectations are at a constant high. However, we just felt embraced from the moment we walked in the door until the moment we left. As for the show itself, we opened with a surprisingly brief round of What Are You Doing?, then followed up with a Director's Cut that was admittedly shaky as I don't think Corey & Mo had ever played it, and it had been quite awhile since I had done it was well. Our next round was Styles Replay and it was my favorite scene of the entire match. The styles we got to replay were fear, Charles Dickens, and film noir and...well...you just had to be there. The scene rocked and it was really fun to share the stage with my team. The Chicago team then rocked a great round of 5 Things - and even guessed the Baldwin Brothers correctly in the process (again, you had to be there). The second half was a fun round of Out of Gas and our final game was a clap-along ID Symphony that had the audience singing along by the end. We ended the night with Foot In Mouth/World's Worst and it was a nice finish to an outstanding show. Of course, we came in second as it wasn't our tournament to win, but winning isn't the point of a show anyway - it's giving the audience a show they'll talk about after they leave - and I think we gave them that and more. So the night is over, right? Not so fast...

Back when we hosted the CSz National Tournament in 2002, the Chicago team performed their infamously foul and amazingly funny no-holds barred show, The Hot Karl (Google it if you don't know what that means and you'll get the idea of what the show entails). They invited a few people to guest with them, including me, and it was the first time I had done long form in years. It's definitely not a show for the easily offended and also something I've never gotten to do before - just take the filter off and say or do whatever hits you in the moment - and I actually loved every vulgar minute of it. The host and co-founder of the show, Tim Chidester, told me after the show that I had an open invite if I was ever in Chicago to guest with them...and it just so happened that they were doing The Hot Karl right after our March Madness show. I caught up briefly with Tim and the cast backstage and they very graciously invited me to do the show with them despite my lack of giving them notice I would be in town. It was SO fun! It honestly was an experience I always wanted to have on a Chicago stage, but never had, so my thanks go out to them again for letting me sit in. And Tim reminded me that the door is always open to me whenever I'm back in town...

Following the show, we went across the street to Clarke's for a quick bite to eat and then, similar to the night before, chilled out at Corey & Mo's place and watched the rest of the NCAA scores get posted.

As Sunday was Easter...which was before Passover (now, I'm not really religious so someone please explain that one to me), our plan was to hit downtown, but also came to the realization that most every place would be closed due to the holiday. However, after a brief venture online, we found that there were still quite a few places that were still open and we could easily make a day out of it. So Steph and I packed up, thanked and said goodbye to Corey & Mo (thanks again, you two!) and headed to the Mag Mile. We popped into some stores that surprisingly had holiday hours (Banana Republic) and frustratingly passed by stores that were closed and that we don't have in the Q.C. (the Apple Store), but found some cool places that I had never been to. We perused the Art Institute, Millennium Park (took the trademark tourist photo in the silver, galactic jellybean thing), and the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum - where we left an abrupt yet funny message on the video board. We hopped back in the car and took our time coming home and luckily avoided the random snowstorm that decided to hit the Midwest in the process.

So it was a great weekend and is really inspiring me to want to move back up to the Windy City and give it a second chance. I've got a lot more friends up there now and I think it would be something that it wasn't the first time I was up there: fun.

One step closer...

He got another two states after a rough week last week. Got some valuable momentum back...

And can anyone else believe what Geraldine Ferraro said?

Wow.

Somewhere that's green...

Isn't it strange how seemingly random things can reconnect you to people or places that you've long forgotten?

I'm interning at The River Cities' Reader, and last week one of the reporters did a profile on a young woman who is living on a boat with her husband in Chicago, documenting the entire experience on her blog, and is eventually planning on turning it into a book. I saw her photo and thought she looked really familiar, but couldn't quite place where or how I knew this person.

After reading the article I realized that it was Felicia (Jones) Schneiderhan, who was Audrey to my Seymour in our high school production of Little Shop Of Horrors. She was also one of my main inspirations for pursuing theatre as she is an extremely talented actress. I was in a show with her back in junior high (what you youngin's call "middle school" nowadays) in which she was the lead and I was a lowly extra. However, I made a promise to myself that I would get a role opposite her when I got to high school, and Little Shop ended up being that amazing opportunity. We ended up being in at least 6 or 7 shows together overall and she was so incredibly fun to share the stage with.

The last time I saw her was in 1993 after her class graduated (she was a year ahead of me and heading to Northwestern), but I attempted to reconnect with her many years later after I had moved to Chicago, but to no avail. One of my friends at ComedySportz was in her class and I'd ask if he'd seen her or some other friends that I'd lost touch with at any of their reunions, but that also proved as another dead end. I just resolved to make peace with the fact that I would probably never get to meet up with her again, which made me sad as she was a part of the process that lead me to still doing theatre today, but how many friends from high school do any of us really keep in touch with anymore? Life continually evolves for each of us as people come into our lives, make an impact (whether for good or bad), and then move on with their lives. And that is what happened here...

...until I saw that article in the Reader and found out that she'd be in town the next two weekends to teach a writers workshop.

I went to the end of the workshop on Saturday night right before ComedySportz and, after only about 5 seconds, Felicia remembered me and we shared a hug and had a nice little reunion. It was amazing to hear where life had taken her following college and the unique journey that she's been on ever since. I also invited her and her family to check out a CSz show her last weekend in town and hope she takes me up on the offer. I still go to Chicago quite a bit and I'm excited to take some time when I'm up there to meet her husband, Mark, and see the infamous Mazurka that she now calls home.

I added a link to her blog, entitled Life Aboard Mazurka, and it really is a great read. Check it out if you get the chance!