Improv & Wicked

The last two days have been a bit of a whirlwind fir some reason. A friend of mine was doing some stand-up comedy at the Improv in Hollywood. She’s only been at it for less than a year, so this is kind of a big deal. So, I drove up to Hollyweird and saw the show. The show was great, really freakin funny. My brother met me there as well, so that was cool. The show started late and ran long, so we didn’t get out until after 1am. I was all set to drive back to OC, and my friend offered to let me crash on her futon.
We end up talking until 5am and getting up at 10. We have lunch, run some errands for her and I take off back to Orange County. At 4pm. Bad plan.
I crawl on the 101 & the 5 for about an hour, then finally escape to the 605. It wasn’t too bad after that, but my car has no Air Conditioning. I was pretty rank. Just as I’m getting off the 22 to get home, my roommate calls. His plans got messed up and he now has an extra ticket to go see “Wicked”. Tonight. Do I want to go?
Are you kidding me?
I come home, take a quick shower (my second of the day), and put on some clean clothes. That’s when I find out that the show wasn’t in OC, as I assumed. It’s in Hollywood. Ah crap…
Back to the 22/605/5/101 funhouse! Not that bad this time. But, I was still laughing at the Irony.
“You know, if you had called me about 2 hours earlier, I could have just met you there?”
The show was at the Pantages. I’d never been there. It’s is so classic. They don’t make em like that anymore! Absolutely beautiful.
So, “Wicked”…
For some reason lately, when I hear a really good vocalist, I get teary. I’m not really sure why, but it is this intense emotional response. I think I broke, at least, 6 times during the show. My roommate asked me twice if I was OK. It’s kind of embarrassing, but I just can’t help it. The show was amazing. Both leads just wrecked me, they were sooo good.
I really, really need to start singing again…

Atomic Movie Night

About a week and a half ago I replied to a MySpace Bulletin posted by a guy I kinda know, Atomic Steve. He was announcing the possible movies for “Movie Night” at his place. Among them was “Blade Runner’. I haven’t seen Blade Runner since High School, so I wrote him back. That Monday I drove up to Long Beach for Movie Night. I got a chance to hang out with some guys I barely know, including Graham & “The Jew” and some new people (something rare for me). I guess you could say I’ve been kind of a hermit for the last year or so.
The movie rocked (It was the Director’s Cut), and we all made nominations for the next week. I nominated “The Jerk” (I’d never seen it, somehow). Last night was week 2, and The Jerk won 4 to 1 (The one was for “Run, Lola, Run”, another movie I hadn’t seen but really wanted to.) We started the movie at 9. Graham was late, same as the week before (apparently that’s his ‘thing’). Since the movie was pretty short, a few of us decided to stick around and watch “Run, Lola, Run”. There’s a little mind bender for you. I really loved the little “And Then” scenes.
My nomination for next week is “The Machinist” with Christian Bale. I’ll keep you all updated on the pick…



I’ve started reading the new “World of Darkness” books from White Wolf. The changes in Vampire seem to be mostly cosmetic. They’ve muddled up the back story, made it a bit more mysterious. Was Caine the founder? Maybe. It might have been Dracula. It might have been Longinus. I have no problem with that. Just don’t make a character over 2000 years old and you’ll have no problem.
The back stories for Werewolf & Mage have been completely re-written. The entire Triat concept is thrown out. I really liked the Wyld/Weaver/Wyrm or Dynamic/Stasis/Entropy Cosmology.
I downloaded the “Quick Start” stories off of the White Wolf site. I think I’m going to run the werewolf story “Welcome to Manitou Springs”. Maybe try it as a one-night thing. Something semi-constructive to do with my time….