Eric

07:34 pm: SNL Stand-by: Peyton Manning/Carrie Underwood
I finally made it back to doing stand-by after over 3 months. I first got to NBC around 2:45 PM Friday, which is way earlier than I usually show up, but I thought since it was warm out and there might be Carrie Underwood fans there there would be a longer line earlier on. Turns out, only Danny, Jamie and Louis were there in the afternoon, so I decided to walk around NYC for awhile and came back at 6:00. By then only one other person had joined the line, a woman who travels the country to see Carrie and has seen her around 30 times. There was some guy from NPR there too who interviewed Louis for around 12 hours, with a few short breaks in between.

People slowly started lining up after 6:00. We started seeing some cast members around 10:00 I guess. Kenan and Kristen waved to the line and everyone waved back, and then Bill showed up and talked to me, Vanessa, Kelly and Zach. I was dying to know who wrote the robot sketch from the previous week, since I laughed harder at that than anything all season, so I asked Bill who wrote it and he said it was written by Will Forte, Colin Jost, and one other writer, I forget who he said. Jason showed up later in the nightand talked to a few people, but it was a long time after Bill left, and I assumed by that point no other cast members were going to show up, and I was talking to someone further back in the line and turned around just in time to see Jason walk away. Oh, and the big surprise of the night: Lorne Micheals had soup delivered to the line around 12:30!

I got #3 for the dress rehearsal. Not a lot of stand-bys got in, and we were put up in the crappy side section, in the last 2 rows. I wound up being able to see the least amount of sketches out of all the times I've gone to SNL. I could only fully see 4 out of the 12 sketches. I thought the show was hilarious though. I liked Kristen's "Penelope" character. They cut 3 recurring sketches: Appalachian Emergency Room, Jo-Jo, and Virginiaca. How all those could be cut while the rock thrower sketch could make it to the live show is beyond me. There was also a really funny sketch that got cut where Fred and Peyton played an acoustic guitar singing duo playing for guys in prison. I thought the funniest part of the whole show was when Andy showed up on Weekend Update as Sanjaya, with Kristen as the girl crying in the audience. Dan Aykroyd wasn't in the dress rehearsal, but I spotted him in the lobby while I was standing at the elevators waiting to be let up.

But despite my dissapointment over my bad seat, overall I had a really good time this past weekend.

09:15 pm: SNL Stand-by: Alec Baldwin/Christina Aguilera
Wow, did I have a scare last night. I was #7 for the dress rehearsal, and initially, they let 6 up. I was standing there for probably only a few minutes, but it seemed like an eternity, but then finally the NBC Relations woman said "All-right, let another 5 up!". And then that was all that got in for dress. When us last 5 got up to the 9th floor, we were told to run down the hallway. I got in just in time to see Fred and Maya finishing some musical thing as the warm-up. I got a great seat in the 2nd row, main balcony, a little to the right of the main stage.

Stand-by Friday night was kind of calm. It was a pretty quiet line. I got a picture with Robert Smigel shortly after I got there. Bill came up to a bunch of us regulars sitting around at the front of the line to say hi. We saw Darrell and Maya, but nobody on the line seemed to care that they there were there. Fred was the only one that a bunch of people went up to. I got another picture with him. Tracy Morgan was also seen twice, and a bunch of people got pictures with him. Alec Baldwin showed up later on. There was this bus parked alongside the stand-by line for awhile, and Alec walked past the line and into the street with a couple people, then all of a sudden, he peeked back around the bus and goes to us "What are you all waiting on line for?" so everyone started screaming "You! We're waiting for you!", and he goes "Me?" and people were shouting "Yeah you! SNL!".

I thought the show wound up being the best of the season, tied with the Dane Cook episode. I was getting worried, because the other 3 shows in between I thought were really uneven. The show last night was amazing though. The "Tony Bennett Show" got set up right in front of me, facing me. I think Kristen Wiig had the best show she's had so far. It was nice to see someone other than Darrell as some politician or Will as George Bush for the opening sketch. Kristen was hilarious as Nancy Palosi, and I loved the sketch with her and Alec in the car. They had that near the end of the dress rehearsal, and the audience went crazy over it, so I figured it was going to get bumped way up in the live show, and I was glad it did get moved up to before Weekend Update. In dress, Martin Short and Paul Mc Cartney were not in the Steve Martin sketch. Andy played a waiter. I was shocked when I got home and saw Martin and Paul on the show. Will had a bizarre sketch that got cut where he played that Speedreader character that he did 3 years ago. It needed to get cut. Bill and Fred were in a really funny sketch that got cut where Bill was the owner of a Tower Records store that was closing, and Alec and Fred were employees that didn't undertstand that it was closing. Oh, and one of the funniest parts of the dress rehearsal was when Christina went onstage to do her second song, her piano player was nowhere to be found, so we all sat there in darkness for like 5 minutes as they tried to find the piano player, and people in the audience were screaming stuff out like "I love you Christina!", "Do it acapella", and "Is anybody in the house a piano player?".

08:36 pm: SNL Stand-by: John C. Reilly/My Chemical Romance
I had a really chaotic weekend doing stand-by. I first got to the line about 5 PM Friday, but not to get my spot on line yet, only to drop my stuff off because my father and I were meeting my uncle, aunt and cousins who were in town visiting from Florida. They were supposed to meet us at the stand-by line at 5, and we were supposed to go out to dinner right away, so I thought I'd make it back to the line by 7 or 8. Instead, from 5 till 7 we stood there while my uncle by cell phone tried to track down my cousins, who were somewhere by 42nd street seeing a movie. I was freaking out! Luckily the line wasn't growing much in those two hours.

While we were waiting, we saw P. Diddy, and then Bill Hader while he was on break from rehearsing came up to the line to say hi. At first, just Vanessa, Zach and I talked to Bill, and then Bill had to get back upstairs to rehearse, but then my uncle stopped Bill on his way back to the building and goes "My son's a comedian. He wants to be on this show. How do I get him on the show?". I was cringing. But anyway, Bill answered my uncle very nicely and mentioned that he started at Second City LA, and then he said you have to get as much stage time as possible, and he mentioned Amy and others doing stuff at UCB, and he also mentioned Megan Mullaley discovering him.

Finally, at 7 we met up with my cousins, and then we went to get dinner. Only, the restaurant we went to was crowded so we didn't eat until an hour later. I wound up not getting back to the stand-by line until 11.

One of my cousins, who is 14, decided he was going to wait overnight with my father and I even though he was too young to get into the show. He wanted to meet Kenan, but while we were out at dinner, Kenan supposedly had already been seen at the line. We met Max Wineberg, who I was glad to meet since I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan, and other than Bruce, I had never met any members of the E Street Band. Later, Jason Sudeikis and his wife Kay walked up to the line, and they got mobbed. I went up to Jason and shook his hand, and we asked each other how we're doing, and then that was all I got to say because there were so many people around talking to him from all directions. My cousin said something to Jason that made Jason laugh, but I didn't catch what it was. I also met Jason's wife.

My cousin finally gave up waiting on the stand-by line after only 2 hours. My father and I got #s 12 and 13 for dress. They wound up letting 89 in. My seat was all the way on the side where the musical guest is. Arlene was next to me, and she was going totally wild. Jason did the warm-up, which I was glad to see, and right away Arlene did something that got Jason's attention, and he was talking to her from the stage. I liked Jason's routine of asking questions from the audience. Arlene throughout dress was clapping and laughing louder than anyone in the studio, and when My Chemical Romance was on, she was totally rocking out like a punk rocker, and did this hilarious move where she whipped her head around. Sitting next to Arlene at SNL is a whole experience in itself. In fact, she was more entertaining than most of the dress rehearsal, which I thought was one of the weakest dress rehearsals overall that I've seen. Right away, by the second sketch, there was this deadly sketch that got cut where high school students kept winding up in a hospital. One thing that was really funny that got cut was the opening sketch, where Kristen played a therapist to celebrities. Amy was Madonna, Maya was Paris Hilton, Darrell was Donald Rumsfeld, and Bill was John Mark Karr. The sketch was absolutely hilarious, and it was nice to finally have a non-political opening sketch. So instead, for the live show, they put that boring George Bush sketch on as the opening sketch, and then the celebrity therapy sketch is nowhere to be found. I just don't understand why they chose to do that. There was still a bunch of decent stuff that made the live show, but overall I thought it wound up being the weakest of the 3 live shows this year. But, I have to say the whole experience of this past weekend was worth it just to see Will Ferrell as James Lipton in the monologue.

02:25 pm: SNL Stand-by Dane Cook/The Killers
Back in April, I said that the Lindsey Lohan/Pearl Jam weekend was the greatest SNL stand-by weekend I had. I didn't think any weekend could be as great as it, but this past weekend was.

I got to NBC about 6:45 PM Friday. I was somewhere in the 20's in line. About 10 minutes after I got there, Bill Hader showed up, and as usual he stayed around a long time talking to people. The regular fans were pretty much the only ones who went up to him. A lot of people don't even realise who he is when he shows up. When I went up to him he seemed to remember me and said "Oh, hey man, how's it going?" and shook my hand. I had another stand-by ticket with me, the one from the Tom Hanks dress rehearsal that I didn't get into, so I figured I'd get cast members to sign it, and Bill signed the ticket. Later on, after I had gone back to my chair on line, Bill started walking down the street, and I waved good-bye to him and he walked over to me, shook my hand and thanked me for waiting for the show.

Fred Armisen showed up next and he was absolutely hilarious as usual. When people asked for pictures with him, he kept on suggesting all these hilarious scenarios that they could be acting out in the picture. For one girl, he took off his backpack and said for the girl to be acting like she's trying to steal his backpack and he'll be acting like he's screaming at her, so in the picture you see them having this tug of war over the backpack. He signed my stand-by ticket too.

One of the surprises of the night was meeting Don Pardo. I had never seen him outside of the show before. At first I wasn't sure if it was him, but then once he started talking, there obviously was no doubt. He took a bunch of pictures with people and I got a picture with him.
I also met SNL writer Jorma Taccone shortly before or after that, and he signed my ticket.

And then finally, at about 11:30, Jason Sudeikis showed up. I went up to Jason and he goes "Hey, what's up man?", and Vanessa took a picture of us. There were like 8 of us standing around talking to him and I was right next to him. He was really nice and he asked if were all waiting on line and he thanked us for waiting for the show and said he hoped we all got in. Kristen Wiig was standing nearby talking to some fans too, but I didn't even realise it was her at the time because her hair was dyed dark.

I thought that would be the last of seeing any celebrities for the night, but then came the big surprise. At about 2 AM, DANE COOK SHOWED UP! First he ran up to the front of the line, and jokingly screamed at the people at the front of the line that he had already met the night before "Hey! What are you all waiting on line for?". He then walked down the line and kept saying that he wanted to thank us for waiting on line and he couldn't stay around long because he needed to get to sleep, but he wanted everyone to get a picture with him.

I got #15 for dress. I thought I would have a better number and I was kind of nervous about it. The next night about 10 minutes after I went throught the metal detector, I was standing next to the NBC Relations woman, Kat, and I thought I could hear on her cell phone someone saying "We have 40 seats". So sure enough a few minutes later, Kat said to all of us at the elevators "Okay, you're all going up!". I was put up in the side section next to Vanessa, Zach and Kelly. I think we were in the 4th or 5th row.

Most of the dress rehearsal was really funny. The opening sketch worked better in dress for some reason, even thought not much was really changed for the live show. Will and Dane had a sketch early on where they were siamese twins, and Dane's character was substitute teaching a class while Will's character was grieving over his wife dying the night before. But their "Waterboys" sketch was definitely the funnier of the two, so I'm glad that got on. In dress, the Farrah bit was longer and really funny, and then it went into a sketch with Kristen where she played this woman that was annoying everyone at an airport bar. The sketch started out okay, but then it just fell apart, so I wasn't surprised that it got cut. There was another "Geiko" ad in dress, where Fred was playing Jerry Lewis. It was absolutely hilarious! There was one truly horrendous sketch at the end of dress, where Andy played this creature that burst out of Dane's stomach. It was just horrifying and should never see the light of day. I thought all of the live show was pretty good. I'm not thrilled over the Seth/Amy pairing on Weekend Update being that I'm not fanatical about Seth, plus there have been so many sketches where him and Amy have been paired together. I'm glad they finally have a small cast again, and I thought this was the best season premiere they've had in years.

Oh, and the best part of the night - during the goodnights in dress, Jason spotted me, Vanessa, Zach and Kelly in the audience, and he tapped Bill on the shoulder and pointed us out, and they waved to us, and Bill, pointing at us was mouthing something like "You guys! You guys rule!".

This whole weekend was just amazing.

11:42 pm: SNL Stand-by: Lindsey Lohan/Pearl Jam
I had the greatest weekend doing stand-by. I'm actually ranking this at #1 out of the 18 times I've done stand-by.

I got to NBC about 4 PM Friday, which is the 2nd earliest I've ever shown up. I figured I had to get there that early since Pearl Jam was on. I was #12 in line. It was raining until I think around 8 or 9 o'clock, but I was ok with it because it kept Pearl Jam fans from showing up earlier. Otherwise, I probably would have been way down the street in line.

I had a whole bunch of great meetings with SNL cast members. Jason Sudeikis and Kristen Wiig came down from the show together, and they took a bunch of pictures together with fans. Then Kristen got into a car and Jason started walking up the street alongside the stand-by line. When he got up to where I was I asked him to sign my stand-by ticket from the Jack Black episode, which I still had since I didn't get into that show. Jason talked to me for awhile. It was the longest conversation I've ever had with an SNL cast member. I was wearing my Cubs hat, so Jason asked if I was from Chicago, and I told him that I moved out there for awhile to do classes at Second City. Jason used to be with Second City and Improv Olympic in Chicago, and later Second City-Las Vegas, so he was really interested in that, and he asked me how I liked it at Second City, and then he asked "Have you ever considered doing classes at UCB?", and so I told him that I just finished doing a sketch show there that ran for four weeks. He was shocked when I said that. So then he asked me a bunch of questions about my show. We also talked about how great the Jack Black episode of SNL was, and we both thought that it was the best episode of the season. Jason shook my hand, asked me my name, and told me it was really nice to meet me.

Fred Armisen came down next, and stayed around for a long time talking to fans, and I went up to him with my stand-by ticket and asked him to sign it, and he said "Oh hell yeah!". He took the ticket and said "Oooo! What's this?". After he signed it, he said "Is that okay for you?", and I said yeah. He signed it small enough that it left enough room for someone else to sign, so I figured I'd get Bill Hader to sign it too. Bill came down from the show real late, like 12:30 I think. He stayed around for at least an hour talking to people. First he talked to a bunch of the regulars at the front of the line. Then, he went around shaking hands with anyone else who was standing around, one of which was me, and he signed my ticket. He also noticed my Cubs hat and said "I like your hat man! That's a great team!". He also said that he thought the Jack Black episode was a great show. Then, he walked up the sidewalk along the stand-by line, and kept stopping to talk to people along the way. Eventually, he was way down the line, and I couldn't hear what he was saying to people, but every now and then you would hear these bursts of laughter from people on the line. The guy is just hilarious! He has such a great time with the stand-by line.

During the night, I felt more like I was on line for a Pearl Jam concert than SNL, but I love Pearl Jam, so it was okay. People were playing Pearl Jam music, and the people near me on line were pretty talkative, so it was a lively night.

I got #4 for the dress rehearsal. The next night, they initially let 2 people up, and I thought I was about to have a repeat of getting shut out, but 15, 20 minutes later they finally let more people up, 30 at one time! People were cheering and hugging each other when we were told we were getting in. I got the best seat I've ever had at SNL. I was right in the center of the balcony, 2nd row.

I thought the show was great. There was only one deadly sketch in dress, this sketch where Lindsey played a girl who kept beating up her new step-father, played by Chris Parnell. A couple really good sketches got cut. They did another one of those sketches where actors act out the morning announcements at a high school. It was the 2nd sketch in dress, so I'm surprised it got cut. Finesse had a great sketch where he played a waiter with a Jerry Curl, and stuff kept spraying out of it onto people's food. But, I guess you couldn't put both that and the dessert sketch into the show, and the dessert sketch definitely was the funnier of the two. The sketch with the mild mannered people in the bar was better in dress. Will's character went into more graphic detail in dress about what the three of them would do when they got home.

And Pearl Jam rocked! This was the first time out of all the times I've done stand-by that the the musical guest was someone that I'm fanatical about.

This past weekend was just perfect.

08:55 pm: My UCB Show (3/7)
We had our first of 4 shows Tuesday night, and to my great relief, the sketch that I wrote wound up going over really well.

The audience was about 3/4 full. The two main sections of seats facing the stage and the side section to the right of the stage were full. I was like "Oh shit!" when I took a peak out from behind the stage before the show. I just never expected that many people. We had a good lead in "Harold Night", which was packed, so I guess a lot of people just decided to stick around.

My sketch, "Dream" had basically turned into the sketch from hell during rehearsals. It did really well when we first read throught it, and everyone encouraged me to use that sketch in the show, but then when we started acting it out in rehearsals, something was missing. The premise is a couple in a movie theater waiting to meet another couple, and the guy I play tells his wife that the other couple is expecting a child, but then realizes that he might have just dreamed that since he also had a dream that he was on the phone with the husband the same night that he talked to him in reality. My character and his wife have to figure out what was real and what wasn't before the other couple show up.

Initially, me and the girl were just talking normally, which wasn't working, then the director wanted us to scream our way through it, which also wasn't working. Finally, we decided what worked was for the wife to be getting more and more angry, while my character, basically being a jackass wasn't as concerned and was entertained by his wife getting angry. I also added a bunch of physical humor, where I keep on making this goofy face while sipping on my drink as the girl gets more and more angry, and she also keeps pushing me off the seat.

At first when we sat down for the sketch, I was really nervous, but then my third line, which was "Or did I dream that?", the audience laughed at, and I was able to calm down after that. The best part was the first time the girl pushed me off the seat, the chair went flying across the stage too, which had never happened during rehearsals.

It was so cool running around the theater in between sketches, all the energy, going through costume changes, lining up waiting for the next sketch you're in, it was stressful, but so exiting. We have a whole other set of sketches next week, and then the week after that goes back to the sketches we did this past Tuesday.

08:01 am: I'M GONNA GO INSANE FROM REHEARSING!!!!
I have a whole new level of respect for the people at SNL who can do what they do.

It's so stressful rehearsing for a show, it's unbelievable. We're actually doing two shows at UCB now, because our 90 minute show got split into two 45 minute shows, so "Show A" will be on March 7th and 21st, and "Show B" will be on March 14th and 28th. I'm doing pretty well in the 2 roles I'm in for other people's sketches, but for the sketch that I wrote (which is in "Show A"), even though it was funny on paper, it's so much more complicated when acted out than I ever thought it would be. The guy directing it has had me and the people in it try out so many different emotions, and his latest thing is to just scream our way through it, which is fine for a lot of it, but it doesn't go with some of the dialogue I wrote, and the lead girl in the sketch at first was having trouble sounding angry enough in it. Tensions got pretty high Thursday night when we went through it over and over again. I was ready to run screaming out of the place. But afterwards, me and a few of the other people met to rehearse sketches on our own, and I wound up getting some really good notes from them concerning acting that I think is really going to help the sketch. The sketch is definitely there, it just needs to be acted out in the right way. Well, this is the first time stuff I wrote is being put up onstage, so I've learned a whole bunch of valuable things to keep in mind for when I write in the future.

Meanwhile, for the other show I'm doing at the PIT, 4 people have quit. One girl was obsessed with political correctness and was taking offense to nearly everyone's sketches, although she told me that I consistently wrote good roles for women in my sketches and that it was refreshing to see a man who can write so well for women. One guy sent the class an e-mail this morning that was a few pages long, saying how he was always an improv guy and was giving "the other side" (writing) a chance for the first time, but it just wasn't clicking with him and listed a zillion things wrong with the class. When we got to class today, we found out yet another guy had quit because he felt it "wasn't taught right". I actually think this class at the PIT has been great, and have really looked forward to it every week, mainly because besides writing your own sketches, you also get assigned to work with other people on sketches every week and it forced you to get to know everyone. I think for some people it's difficult because they are doing a writing or performing class for the first time. There wasn't official pre-requisite stuff to do this class, but it's pretty much an advanced class. I'm really glad I have the extra training that I got out in Chicago at Second City, because as it is, what I'm doing is stressful enough, but that extra training has really helped me get through what I'm doing now.

Speaking of Second City, one of the Chicago touring companies is coming to a theater in Red Bank, NJ, one town over from where I live on March 10th, so I got tickets for it today. I'm sure I'll recognize a few people in the cast.

10:36 pm: My Sketch Shows
I haven't updated my LJ in awhile so I figured I'd write something. My shows at UCB and PIT are coming along pretty well. The sketches have been picked for the UCB show, called "Pick A Sin and Swing For The Fences", which will run for 4 Tuesday nights from March 7th-28th at 11 PM. The show is going to be insanely long though. We were given what was supposed to be a 50 minute slot, but with 15 people, 13 of which have sketches in the show, the show is looking like it could go somewhere between 75 and 90 minutes.

We're also going to be hosting "Harold Night" each of those Tuesday nights, and we'll be coming out as our characters thoughout the night to talk to the audience before introducing the next improv team that performs as a way to promote our show later that night.

I'm in 3 sketches, one is a sketch called "Dream" that I wrote where a guy and his wife are sitting in a movie theater waiting to meet another couple, and the guy mentions to his wife that the other couple is expecting a child, but then realizes that he might have just dreamed that since he had a dream where he was talking to the husband the same night that they made plans to meet at the movies over the phone. My character's wife goes berserk, and they have to try to figure out what was real and what was just in the dream before the other couple shows up. I'm kind of nervous about the sketch now though, because even though it did really well when we first read through it, now when it's acted out it seems to be missing something, and so the director Charlie Sanders is having me and the other people try out different ways to act during the sketch. Plus, what makes things difficult is that once you start rehearsing the sketches, since everyone knows what the jokes are already since they heard it during read-throughs and re-writes, they're not going to be laughing as much as they would if they were hearing it for the first time, so you have to hope everything really does work when it's performed

I'm also in a sketch where an elementary school teacher is bribing her students for money, and I was given the role of the boy in her class since I look the youngest out of all the guys. I'm in another sketch where this guy is a born again Christian preaching to his co-workers at a bar after work, and I'm one of the co-workers.

My class at People's Improv Theater has been really fun, because you get assigned to work with 1-3 other people each week to write a sketch, so it forces you to get to know everyone. This was originally an 8 week class that would have one performance at the end of it, but it got extended to 12 weeks so we'd have more time to write and rehearse. The date for that show isn't definitely set yet, and we'll be voting on what sketches go in it at the end of February.

I'll try to do stand-by for SNL again for the March 11th show. If not, then I'll go in April.

01:28 am: SNL Stand-by, Jack Black/Neil Young
I DIDN'T GET INTO THE SHOW!!!!!

For the first time in 17 times I've done stand-by, I didn't get in. I was in absolute shock. I got to NBC at 11:45 Friday night, and was #21 in line. I got #8 for dress. I figured it would be a tough show to get into, but I never thought only 6 would get in for dress. Well, I've been to the show so many times and still will be, so it's not the end of the world, but what I really feel bad about is that there were 4 people in back of me from Tampa, 2 from Kentucky, and 1 from Texas (Alix's friend littlebev) who all chose dress, and there was this guy in front of me who last week did stand-by for the first time, got #11 for live and 8 got in, and was giving stand-by another try this week and got #7 for dress.

I decided since I was already in NYC that I might as well walk around for awhile, and I also got Chinese food in the downstairs area of NBC, then waited to talk to the stand-by regulars after they got down from dress. Louis told me that 8 actually got in. I've never not gotten in, so I didn't know to wait around after they tell you to leave just in case more get in. If 2 more really did get in, I'm really pissed.

But even though I didn't get into the show, I still had a good time over the weekend with the people in line, and it was nice to see Vanessa (fallonfanatic) again. The people from out of state in back of me were hilarious and the night went quickly since they talked a lot.

I probably won't be doing stand-by again until March, because I'll be involved in programs at UCB and People's Improv Theater from January till March which work towards writing and performing in sketch shows that will be up in March. Plus, it'll be way too cold out in January, and the one show in February with Steve Martin I doubt many off stand-by will get into.

11:13 pm: SNL Dress Rehearsal - Jon Heder/Ashlee Simpson
I WILL NEVER DO STAND-BY IN THE RAIN AGAIN!!!!

Of course, I've said that before, but I still wind up going anyway. This time was the toughest time doing stand-by that I've had though. I got to NBC about 10:15 Friday night and was #11 in line. The stand-by line was on the 49th Street side. The rain just poured non-stop between midnight and 7 AM. It only got down to 70 degrees, but I was still cold the last few hours because I was soaked. I got #2 for dress. I thought that would mean I'd have a great seat, but I was put way on top in the crappy side section, and for the whole show could only see bits and pieces of sketches.

But something good about the weekend - I met and got pictures with Will Forte and Bill Hader on Friday night! Bill walked up to the line and didn't know what it was, so a few people explained it to him. Bill was in total awe of the fact that we wait overnight for tickets. One girl asked for his autograph, and as he was signing, Fred walked up and asked "Is that your first autograph?" and Bill said it was. Then I asked Bill if I could take a picture with him. He looked shocked that someone would want a picture with him. He kept calling me "Buddy". A bunch of other cast members came down every now and then after that, but I didn't go up to any of them. But then Will Forte came down and I went up to him. I had met Will a couple times briefly 2 years ago, but didn't have a camera with me either time, and I've never waited around after the live show, and Will wasn't seen much on Friday nights back when I would do stand-by a lot in the 2003-2004 season, so I never got a picture with him. But finally, I got a picture with him on Friday. Will talked to Chris for like 5 minutes, and then after Will was done, I asked him for a picture. He said "Yeahhhhhh" and as he was saying it, it seemed like he was trying to figure out if we had met before. After the picture was taken, I said "Thank you", and Will shook his head yeah, and said "You have a nice night now", and then said good-bye to Chris again. Now I just need pictures with Finesse and Kenan and I'll have pictures with the entire 2003-2004 cast.

My review of the show:

George Bush: Another pretty solid opening sketch with Bush. I liked the line "Haven't you heard? She doesn't have a history!".
Grade: A+

Monologue: This was totally lost on me because I never went to see "Napolean Dynamite".

Kaitlin: In dress, Amy kept on opening the butterfly sheet the wrong way, and she burst out laughing and couldn't stop as she kept trying to unfold it the right way, and then the audience cheered for her when she finally got it right. Glad to see this character back so soon, and at the beginning of the show.
Grade: A+

Funeral: How the hell did this make it to the live show? People all around me at dress were saying "That one's cut!" after the sketch was over.
Grade: F

Black Eyed Peas: This was hilarious. I'm still trying to figure out who was playing the white guy dancer.
Grade: A+

Ferecito: I thought this character had run its course, but the sketch wound up being pretty good.
Grade: A+

Ashlee Simpson - She did the "Boyfriend" song first in dress. Before hand she kept jokingly testing out the microphone and yelled "Can you all hear me?".

Weekend Update: I still haven't watched the live version. I'm assuming Tim Calhoun made it on. I thought Horatio did a better job this week than last week.
Grade: A+

Corporation Pranks: Seth had arched eyebrows drawn on him in dress, which I think looked funnier. I don't see why they needed to be changed for the live show. I thought this was one of the best sketches of the night.
Grade: A+

Turtleneck (cut): They did this with Steve Carell last week, where he shows up at a party wearing an $800 sweater that is uncomfortable to wear, but keeps it on to impress a girl. Steve did a better job with it, but the sketch was still good, and they wrote in a better ending. Last week, when Amy walked in, she said she liked the sweater. This time when Amy walked in and saw the sweater she said "Ewww! That is so gay!".
Grade: A

Tom Delay: This sketch was ok, and if I ducked beneath the monitors could actually see the whole sketch, but I really don't think it was funny enough to be put so early in the live show.
Grade: C+
(Edit: I just watched the live show. I realised this sketch was pretty good. I guess I just got distracted being uncomfortable trying to see the sketch underneath the monitors.
Grade: A)

Chuckles Comedy Club (cut): This was a series of people trying out stand-up comedy. It was pretty much bombing until Amy came out as a regular house wife who was giving stand-up a try. All she did was tell jokes about her husband's small penis. Will played her husband in the audience who kept cracking up at the horrible jokes made at his expense. I think this sketch could be re-written into a shorter version to center around Amy's character.
Grade: B

Warewolf: Again, I don't see how this made it past dress and how it got put on so early in the live show. What were they thinking?
Grade: F

Elevator (cut): This was one of the funniest sketches I've seen Kenan do. He played a dim witted guy named "Elevator" who would just hang out in his building elevator and make everyone pay $1 for orange soda. Jon played a visitor to the building who couldn't believe everyone's patience with the guy.
Grade: A+

Customer Service Voice: This was my favorite sketch of the night. They shortened it for the live show though. There was a part where Fred came in as her ex-boyfriend who was having trouble accepting the fact that they broke up.
Grade: A+

Gangsters (cut): This was a really funny sketch where Will played this gangster who had this high pitched laugh and would laugh at everything the lead gangster, played by Horatio would say. Unfortunately, it didn't really have a strong ending, and it ended with a voice over from Jimmy Carter saying it was from a dream he had.
Grade: B+

Overall: There were enough decent sketches in dress to make the whole live show great. I really don't understand the choices that were made for the live show this week.

05:30 pm: SNL Dress Rehearsal - Steve Carrel/Kanye West
I got to NBC at about 9:30 Friday night. I was going to get there in the afternoon, but it took longer to drive back from Chicago than I thought it would. It turns out, I didn't have to get to stand-by early because I was only #22 in line, and nobody showed up after me for another 2 hours. I was really surprised since it was the season premiere. I hadn't done stand-by in nearly a year. It was so great to be back. I got #13 for dress. I had a really good seat. I was in front of the musical guest, 3rd row.

Anyway, my review:

George Bush: I thought this was pretty funny, but it went for a long time in dress. I think they cut it down a little bit for the live show. I liked the "6 week vacation" joke. I thought they made Will look more like Bush than they did last year.
Grade: A

Monologue: I didn't know for sure that Steve auditioned for SNL, but I figured he must have because I know they had a huge amount of people from Second City audition in 1995.
Grade: A

Taco Commercial (cut): This was a really funny commercial with the 3 featured players where it's a taco place where the tacos get wrapped in many layers of stuff, until finally it is wrapped in a pancake and then deep fried. I guess they'll show this next week.
Grade: A+

Jet Blue: Steve was really funny in this. I figured this would make it to the live show since it was a current event.
Grade: A+

Rich New Orleans Couple (cut): This was such a great sketch. It went on right by me. I knew something dealing with Katrina had to be cut since they had 4 things in dress dealing with it, but this shouldn't have been the one to go. Amy and Steve played a rich couple whose home was barely damaged, and FEMA right away came to the rescue, giving them baskets of wine and cheese. Meanwhile, Finesse and Kenan washed up on the street and were begging for help, and FEMA just pushed the raft they were on away in the direction of the Superdome. The sketch ended with a caption saying "FEMA: WE CARE!".
Grade: A+

Couple That Should be Divorced: I'm so sick of sketches that have Seth and Amy together. The sketch was ok though. Over the summer, when we were working on 4 person scenes in my comedy sketch writing class at Second City, my teacher used the previous sketch with this couple that aired in February as an example of a sketch that should have been a 4 person scene, but they made the mistake of putting 6 people in it. So, right away I thought of that when I saw they put only 4 in it this time.
Grade: B

TV Funhouse: I wish they'd do away with these cartoons. I think it's such a shame when these cartoons get on over some great sketch that was in dress.
Grade: F

Baby Thief (cut): This was one of the funniest sketches of the night. Maya was at her gynecologist's office, and Steve was the doctor. As he was checking her out, the baby's arm would keep coming out and would steal stuff from Steve, like his pocket light and his expesive watch. Maya would keep asking if everything was all-right down there as Steve would tell her it was, and then he would go back to making deals with the baby.
Grade: A+

Kanye Backstage: In dress, Lorne and Maya discussed the previous sketch, with Lorne trying to convince her that no one will notice that she's pregnant, and Maya said "But I was playing a pregnant woman!". I don't remember Lorne saying to Kanye" "Look!" and then running away in dress. They had more of a discussion. It was great to see Mike Myers again.
Grade: A+

Weekend Update: Horatio was stumbling a lot with this in dress. Kind of an odd choice for co-anchor, but I guess since it's only temporary they thought they'd try something different.
Grade: B

60's Variety Show: Kenan and his "Amanda" song were hilarious!
Grade: A+

Anderson Cooper: I was surprised this got put so early in the live show since it was late in dress. I guess this went over the rich couple sketch since it was the only sketch where Steve did an impression of somebody. Great to see Fred as Tony Danza again.
Grade: A+

Turtleneck Sweater (cut): This was a hilarious sketch where Steve showed up at a party wearing an $800 sweater with a big turleneck in order to impress some girl. He becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the sweater until finally he starts pouring stuff down it and then finally loses his mind and rips off the sweater and throws it on the floor, just as the girl he was hoping to impress shows up.
Grade: A+

Carol (cut): This was with Horatio's character that he did last year in the "Key Party" sketch. This time, Carol was being set up with Steve by a couple played by Amy and Jason. I guess this will turn up again.
Grade: A+

Debbie Downer: I'm glad they added something new with Bob Bummer. Arlene and I had just had a discussion the night before where she went on and on about how they need to stop with the Debbie Downer sketches. She was sitting right in front of me at dress, so after it was over, I asked her if she approved of it this time, and she said she did. They shoretened it a lot for the live show though.
Grade: A+

Body Cast (cut): Very forgettable sketch with Horatio in a body cast. My mind wandered off before the sketch was over.
Grade: F

Radio Announcement (cut): This had Steve as a guy who was giving a bunch of people advertisements to read promoting NBC shows. It wasn't that great.
Grade: C

01:52 pm: The Improv Olympic 25th Anniversary Show
I wound up going to the show Saturday night, at the Chicago Theater. It was sold out, but I bought a ticket from a guy outside the theater. Mike Myers, Tim Meadows, Horatio Sanz, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Jason Sudeikis, Andy Dick, Andy Richter, Ike Barinholtz, Mo Collins and Kevin Dorff were some of the people there.

The night started out shakey because they kept having microphone problems. First David Koechner and some other guy started out the show, and we could barely here them, especially where I was in the upper level. The Chanra came out and attempted to give a speech 3 times, starting every time with "What a historic night", and then people would start screaming at her that they couldn't hear her. Finally Tim Meadows ran out to her with a hand-held microphone, and that was a little better. Then Amy and Rachel came out and talked to the audience for a bit. Rachel joked she forgot how much more relaxed Chicago is than NYC, and that she starts everyday in Chiacago by eating a deep dish pizza.

Then a pre-recorded video with Tina Fey was shown where it was really a joke about the "cult of improv". She was pretending that she was shaken and about to cry, and she talked about how one night, she was shit faced drunk dressed in 70's clothes after having been at 70's night at Wrigley Field, and she started walking down Clark Street and 8 guys surrounded her and said "Don't deny your partner, say "Yes and", and she mentioned a bunch of improv rules, and then Tina said, "And now here I am and.... I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHOSE BABY THIS IS!".

Then a whole bunch of people, the current SNLers, Mo and Ike, and the two Andys started to do an improv form called "The Living Room", where they all talk about a topic, and then someone says "I want to see a scene where", and then they do scenes from that. Everyone had microphones hooked up to them, but then the microphones weren't working again so they all went offstage. Mo and Andy Dick ran out onstage and did like a ho-down dance and kept doing all these funny moves with each other. That actually was one of my favorite parts of the night. Then, "Baby Wants Candy" came out to perform. "Baby Wants Candy", who improvises a musical off an audience suggestion, is brilliant, but not in a huge theater with lots of people who are unfamiliar with them. A lot of the audience was groaning and went out to the lobbys while they were performing. Finally, wired microphones on stands were brought out, and so for the rest of the night, anyone performing had to hold up the microphones to their mouths in order to be heard.

They started "The Living Room" again, and they talked about different spas they've visited, and Ike said "I want to see a scene set in a Russian spa", and then a few of the guys and Mo did a scene based off that. Then for the next round they started talking about the song "Hollaback Girl", and some of the guys asked "What exactly is a Hollaback Girl?", so Amy stepped up and explained that it's a girl who gets called by a guy late at night for a booty call, and that girl gladly takes up the offer. So then Andy Dick said "I want to do a scene where I'm a Hollaback Girl". I can't really remember much of the scene now.

Then "Beer Shark Mice" with Kevin Dorff and a bunch of IO guys I don't know did improv for awhile. It wasn't anything that funny or memorable.

Then the UCB 4 came out, and that was the funniest part of the show. They did their "Sushi Sketch". The four of them sat around a plate of sushi, claiming that that would be the start of the sketch, but then they got so into the sushi that they wound just talking about how great the sushi was, and Horatio walked out and told them off for not doing their sketch, and went into a whole tirade, smashing the plate of sushi on the ground, and then one of the UCB guys pulled out a gun and shot Horatio.

Then there were video tributes to Del Close and Chris Farley. After that there was an intermission and then they did a whole bunch of Harold or Armando Diaz games. Andy Richter and Mike Myers were the monologists, and Amy and Rachel had this hilarious scene where Rachel was a mother knocking on her rebellious daughter's door, and as Amy was talking, Tim Meadows and Andy Dick played these two guys who were waiting in her bed, saying they couldn't pause forever for her.

After the show, I ran into a couple guys from my improv class outside. We saw a few of the people that were performing leave. Tim Meadows was right by me taking pictures with fans. I didn't have a camera with me. I wasn't really expecting to meet anyone that night. I was going crazy because he was right there and I could have had a picture with him. I met Ike Barinholtz. He thanked me for being at the show. These Mad TV people are so unbelievably nice. I'm still shocked over all these meetings I've had with people from that show since I've been in Chicago. It started with Josh Meyers and Mo Collins when I first met them at the Chicago Improv Festival in 2004. Same thing, both of them like real sincerely thanked me for being at the show when I went up to them, and were very talkative with fans and were hilarious, then came the next year at CIF with Mo again, plus Paul Vogt, Ron Pederson, the writers, and getting to talk to Micheal McDonald for awhile in the bar nearby, and then finally, there was Ike this weekend, who I wasn't even expecting to meet. I'll always be grateful to the Mad TV people for showing as much interest in their fans as they did.

11:08 pm: SAW RACHEL DRATCH AT SECOND CITY TONIGHT!
I went to the free improv set after the SC Mainstage show tonight. They had 3 special guests. Two were people from Boom Chicago. Cynthia Wallace introduced the special guests. When she introduced Rachel, she said "Here's a member of our huge Second City family. You may have seen her pretty face on Saturday Night Live. Rachel Dratch!". The audience went totally berserk. People just went on cheering forever, and Rachel was in shock. It took 15 months, but this is the first time I saw a current SNL cast member out here. She had this really funny scene with Brian Gallivan where Brian was hitting on her, and he told her she reminded him of a cat, so Rachel started acting like a cat, and Brian kept spanking her and pretended that he was a dog. There was another scene with her and Cynthia where they were two patients in a doctor's waiting room, and Rachel played this ditzy actress who was bragging that she almost got a few lines on "Lilo and Stitch". Freeze-Tag, which ended the show was so funny, because once Rachel got in for it, she couldn't get out of it, because everyone on stage wanted to do a scene with her. When Brian got in for a scene, him and Rachel did their cat/dog characters from earlier, and Molly Erdman played a blind person. Rachel gave Brian to her as her seeing eye dog. Brian kept barking and Rachel kept giving him a thumbs up. Maribeth Monroe, who auditioned for SNL this year, was hilarious as usual. I haven't heard anything about her being hired yet, but she would be such a great addition to SNL.

03:05 am: Summer Update
I haven't updated this in awhile so I figured I'd write something. So anyway, another semester just ended at Second City. I finished my dramatic acting class and the third level of my comedy sketch writing class.

In my acting class, we did two person scenes. Today, we had our last class and we all did our scenes in front of the class. I was paired with a girl to do a scene where I'm a Vietnam Vet who has just come back from the war, and is badly shaken after his friend was killed out there. It was such a switch to do something like this after doing only comedy with improv and writing. I think the girl and I did pretty well with the scene. The only thing was at one point the guy I was playing is in a tirade, and the teacher had told me to just barrel through it, screaming at the girl, barely giving her character a chance to say her lines in between my character's tirade. Today, the teacher told me I wound up going through it too fast. But after that, the characters sit down and calmly talk about things, and the teacher said that that was where he could really see a connection with our characters, and said we did really well with that.

My comedy sketch writing class has been really fun. Out of the 3 classes I did at Second City, improv, acting, and writing, I liked the writing classes the best. We did some satirical and style parody sketches this semester, which is the type of stuff I like to write the best. I did a satirical sketch where it was a parody of the Tom/Katie and Brad/Angelina relationships. In my sketch, a high school girl was hosting a community access gossip show in her basement. "Tim", a senior who was looking for publicity for his upcoming run for class president, was causing a scandal by going out with a freshman. The captain of the football team, "Brian" was interviewed about his supposed new relationship with "Annie" of their rival high school, but wouldn't give a definite answer as to whether or not they were really together. At the end of the sketch, Tim surprises them by running onto the set and jumps on and off of the couch with his fists up in the air, declaring that he's in love. The host's mother comes in and throws a fit over him dirtying her white couch, and grounds the host and sends them everyone off of the set. She then takes a look around and says "Damn kids. Oh someday they'll grow up!", and then leaves. My teacher hates Tom Cruise, so he loved the sketch. In the next level, we'll be writing sketches based on personal experiences and people we know. I can think of a whole bunch of people I've known that would be great to use as a character to write a sketch around.

I'll be moving back to NJ at the end of September. I'll be looking into continuing with serious acting classes in NYC, and I'll start with UCB's improv program. I thought I'd be back to do stand-by for SNL's season premiere, but the premiere is a week earlier than usual this year, so I'll be there for the second episode.

04:15 pm: MY LEVEL E GRADUATION SHOW!!!!
We had our graduation show on the Second City Mainstage Saturday. This was the last level of the year long beginning improv program. I've been with most of these people since Level A, and everyone else since Level B. The show was about 45 minutes long. We each did 3 scenes. In our show we did:

Last Line Pick Up - This is where 3 couples are all given different settings/relationships, and one couple starts a scene, and then the other 2 couples can pick up with a line of the first couple and start their scene, and it keeps going around like that a few times. I was paired with a guy and we did a scene based off an audience suggestion of "farm". The guy played this city kid who was working on a farm, and I was his boss that was angry that he was so clueless as to what to do.

Sentences - 3 couples all one at a time did a scene where they had 2 sentences on paper that they hadn't read, and at any point in the scene they could pull out a sentence and then find a way to justify that in a scene. I did a scene with a guy where I was a doctor and he was a patient who had an odd rash. When I pulled out a sentence, it said something about being sidetracked in life because of dirty underwear, so that actually wound up working pretty well for the scene since we wound up saying that the doctor's judgement was that the guy's underwear was the problem since he doesn't change it for so long.

I wasn't in the next few scenes, but they were Baseball, where you go around to 3 people around the bases to get a different characteristic for your character before you take questions from the audience on some issue; Style Option, where 3 people do a scene, and it keeps changing styles(music, movie genre, etc.) - 3 guys in my class screwed this up badly when "disco" was an audience suggestion, and one guy started to sing the Rolling Stone's "Satisfaction" before realising his mistake and announcing on stage that that isn't disco, and the other guy just stood there badly singing. Finally, the third guy saved it by actually doing disco moves while singing a disco type song, and the audience cheered in relief for him.

There was also 4 square, with 4 people where the moderator keeps shouting "one to the left" or "one to the right", every few lines, and the square of people rotates and whatever 2 people that puts up front, they continue with their scene. An audience suggestion for a time period for 2 girls was "Middle Ages", and the 45 year old in our class Kathy, cleverly twisted it around by being a middle aged woman complaining about stuff that middle aged women go through. It wound up being a recurring joke during the show, when other people kept shouting out "Middle Ages" for a couple other scenes that Kathy was in. Another scene she was in was "ABC", where 3 people do a scene and each person has to start their sentence with the next letter of the alphabet.

Town Hall - This ended the show with the whole class. One guy was the mayor of a town with one person on either side of him stating their reason for the pros and cons of putting up a bird hospital in town. The rest of the class stood on both sides of the stage and asked questions and argued for or against the issue. I played a guy who liked to hunt birds, and wanted to know if I could shoot any birds that escaped from the hospital. Another guy Rob played an animal rights activist who was concerned about me shooting the birds. A girl in my class, Roseanne played a foriegn girl who was hitting on a bird doctor, asking if he could make a personal visit to her house for her sick bird. Another guy Mike played an almost blind old guy who would get distracted over being attracted to one of the girls that was standing on the side. This scene went really well, and it was a great way to end the show.

We were all presented with diplomas from our teacher after the show, which I wasn't expecting. It got pretty emotional among the class before and after the show, since we had stayed together for so long.

So this was the last of me doing improv here in Chicago before I come back home to NJ at the end of September. I'll start with UCB when I get back. For the rest of the summer out here in Chicago, I'll be doing the 3rd and 4th levels of the comedy sketch writing program at Second City, and I'm doing a dramatic acting class at SC that involves scripted two person scenes, monologues, and practicing for auditions.

04:17 pm: MY NIGHT WITH THE MAD TV CAST MEMBERS AND WRITERS!!!!!!
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!

Last night Mad TV was at the annual Chicago Improv Festival. Ron Pederson, Mo Collins, Micheal Mc Donald, Keegan Micheal Key, and Paul Vogt did a 45 minute improv set, and 5 of the writers, Tami Sagher and Rich Talerico from Second City, and 3 other writers did a bunch of sketches they wrote before that.

Mo was absolutely hilarious in the improv set. There was a scene where she was playing this dorky pizza delivery girl at a guy's door, and Micheal was in back of her as her father giving her encouragement. When the guy at the door got frustrated, Micheal said "Please be patient with her. She's getting school credit for this!", and Mo burst out laughing. There were a few times during the show where she was trying so hard to not crack up, which the audience thought was hilarious!

There was a really funny scene based off an audience suggestion of Micheal Jackson, where Keegan played MJ, and Micheal Mc Donald played a scared kid. Mo played a servant in MJ's house who brought him his "Jesus Juice". Micheal Mc Donald as the kid passed out and fell down on the ground with his butt up in the air. And then Keegan as MJ said "Hey, aren't you the guy that plays Stuart?", and that ended the scene.

After the show, fans waited by the side entrance where the cast members came out of last year. I waited with a couple guys from my improv class. I had my picture with Mo from last year that I wanted her to sign. First, 2 of the writers from the Groundlings, Stephen and Jim I think were their names came out, and we talked to them for awhile about the Groundlings and what we are doing at Second City. Stephen actually was a writer for SNL from 1998-2000. He said he loved it, but wound up leaving because his wife and kid live in LA, and he didn't want to be apart from them, so he came back to LA and submitted sketches to Mad TV and they hired him.

Ron and Micheal were the first 2 cast members to come out of the building, and I got pictures with both of them. Ron's doing this funny pose in my picture. He's like turned to the side with his hand on his hip and this goofy look on his face. Then Paul came out and I got a picture with him. We talked to him a little bit about how he started in improv and how he got to Mad TV. And then somehow he started talking about his mother's house in Michigan. I can't remember how the conversation lead up to that. Keegan came out around this time too, and he did stop for pictures and autographs, but I was either in the conversation with Paul or the writers at the time, and by the time I was done, Keegan was gone. Then Mo came out. I went up to her with the picture and she said "Oh wow! This was here! This was last year! And you came back again!". The same fans in the background of my picture were nearby us again this year, and Mo showed them the picture and said "Oh look! You're all in his picture. See, Mad TV brings the world together!". She wrote on my picture "Peace! Mo Collins. Thanks for coming!".

After that, me and the guys from my improv class, Steve and Jon went to a bar up the street. And within minutes, the Mad TV people walked in. Micheal, Ron, Paul, and the writers were all near each other at tables, and Mo was at the bar talking to some fan. First, Jon bought Micheal a beer and went up to him and was talking to him for awhile. It was kind of crowded at that point, and Steve and I weren't sure about going up to the table, so we stayed at the bar. Then, Mo got done talking to the guy at the bar, and she walked over to us. I asked her if it's true that Stephnie Wier is leaving the show, and she said she doesn't know, but she her contract is up and she has an option to renew it. She said that Mad TV is currently looking for women to audition for the show. And then Mo said "And then I thought to myself, maybe I should just audition for the show again!". Mo, Ron, and Paul all left together shortly after that. Micheal and writers still stayed.

So then Jon, who is absolutely fanatical about Micheal went up to him again, and Steve and I went with him. Micheal asked where we were from, and we told him about what we're doing at Second City. I had my arms crossed for awhile, and Micheal goes "Are you cold? Are you okay? Are you a junky?". So we're all laughing, and Micheal goes "Here, do you need a hug?", and he hugs me and he goes "There are you okay now?". So then after we talked to him for like 10 minutes, he went off to the bathroom and Steve, Jon, and I sat down at a table. Micheal came back and sat down right next to me. I couldn't believe it. He was sitting right there. We talked to him about the Groundlings for awhile. He told us that SNL and Mad TV asked him to audition 2 days apart. He said he did all of his popular characters that he does now on Mad TV for the SNL audition: Stuart, Rusty, Marvin Tikvah, and they weren't interested. But he did say he was really nervous and it wasn't his greatest audition. He said he auditioned at the same time as Jimmy, Horatio, and Chris Parnell, and also Jimmy was a student of Micheal's when he taught at the Groundlings. He said Jimmy was a very sweet kid, and very funny. He said Jimmy would never do characters though. He was always himself. Jon kept saying to Mike "Come on! How could SNL take Chris Parnell over you!", but Mike kept saying "No, no. Chris is very talented and he deserved it!". The Mad TV writers talked to us some more and Ike Barinoltz's Dad was with them. Ike wasn't there because he was in Amsterdam for Boom Chicago's annual alumni reunion. The one writer, Stephen said I look like Chris Kattan, and then Mike said "Oh, this is my son! You didn't know?".

Eventually, Steve and I felt that we had stayed long enough, and we said good-bye to Mike and the writers. Jon still stayed around talking to them. I don't know how much longer he stayed.

Allright, that's all. This night was just incredible!

11:12 pm: Level E, Class 5
Baseball - 4 of us went up at a time, and 1 person would go around the "bases" to get their characteristics for their character from each person. This time, I was given a British accent, and was crouching down with my back bent forward, and was doing this gesture where I kept on throwing my hands up in the air. Then all 4 of us as our characters would take questions from the other students. I said that I was a chiropractor who was helping others since I didn't want others to ruin their backs the way I did. This was just really painful to do, both in terms of the position I was in, and I hadn't really spoken in a British accent before. Although I did a way better job with a British accent than a certain SNL cast member does for the tired Spy Glass sketches.


Doppleganger - This is where two peope sit in chairs and talk while two people in back of them say what they are really thinking. I may be doing this for our Level E show. I did a mother/son scene where I was a boy saying I wasn't getting good grades at school, and the mother kept trying to tell me in a round about way that I was mentally challenged, and I finally I just innocently said "So I'm retarded!" which ended the scene, and then I did the thoughts of a guy meeting a bitchy girl on a blind date.


La Ronde - We did this in the first class of Level D. This is a long form improv game where 2 people start out a scene while everyone else stands in the back, then 1 person leaves, and the next person in line steps in to start a new scene with the same character that the person from the previous scene just was, and it keeps on going around all the people until it goes back to the original character that left, and the whole story wraps up somehow. This ran smoothly with our Level D teacher, but our Level E teacher had never done this, and we did this game because we suggested it to her. It took our teacher awhile to get all the rules of "La Ronde", and she still has a habit of stopping scenes in progress to make comments. Plus, she decided to add on a part where after it goes around once, then we all go in 4 at a time as the same characters we just played. The thing is "La Ronde" has to flow quickly to work, and she wasn't getting why it wasn't working with her, so she's going to e-mail our Level D teacher to ask him how he got it to work so well.

12:16 am: SNL Tonight - OUCH!
Okay, that has to have been the worst episode of SNL in the past 2 seasons. FALCONER! WHY? Why do they keep on doing those sketches? Hopefully Will saw from the dead silence of the audience that it's time to retire it! And what was with Horatio's horrendous cue card reading in the Mid Eastern restaurant sketch? That was just embarrassing.

Glad to see Martin Short back on the show though, and I loved Fred's sexual harassment film.

12:13 am: Level E, Class 4
Newspaper Ads - We all stood in a line against the wall, and one person would read out a headline from a newspaper, and then any of us could go in to do a scene from that. When we felt that the scene had run its course, one person would run around them like at Assscat, and then another person would read out a headline. I went in for a headline that was something like "Man Listens to Billie Holliday for 360 Hours", and in my scene I played a hostage who was tied up in a guy's basement and was being forced to listen to only Billie Holliday.


Personal Ads - The teacher would read out a personal ad from a newspaper, and then you would base your character off of that. The personal ad read to me was a guy who liked fishing and salsa music. The teacher happened to find a personal ad in the same paper for a girl who also liked salsa music. For our scene, we were a husband and wife at Thanksgiving dinner, and my character was pissed that the fish he caught wasn't being served, and the wife announced that their marriage was in trouble, and their love of salsa music wasn't enough to sustain it any longer.


Comma! - 2 people would go up to do a scene, and after some sentences, the teacher would yell "Comma!", and you would have to add on and heighten emotionally to the last sentence you said. A girl and I played two surgeons who were discussing whether Subway or Quiznos had better sandwiches as we operated on some guy, and I got stuck having to describe why the dressing on one Subway sandwich was so good, since the teacher kept yelling "Comma!". It didn't go well.

This class for some reason, I just wasn't clicking with most of the scenes I was doing. The class overall was fun, but everyone has good and bad improv days, and I just wasn't "on" for this class.

But in my sketch comedy writing class this week, I had a sketch that killed! We had to turn in a "clash of context" sketch, and I had a decked out rich couple in a McDonald's celebrating their one year anniversay since they met, and by the end of the sketch the guy proposes to her, and then they decide to go celebrate by getting "Chaco Tacos" from Taco Bell. Normally, the teacher will give a whole bunch of suggestions for your sketch after it is read, but this time he just said that the sketch was great, and he didn't see anything that needed to be changed, so after my so/so improv the day before, I was happy about that. We have to turn in a "Moral Dilemma" sketch next week. I haven't decided what to do yet.

06:31 pm: Level E, Class 3
We had a really bizarre class because we're still trying to get used to our new teacher. The thing is for 3 of our levels, we had guys who were real comedians who went through the Second City and Improv Olympic training centers and we had a lot of fun with them, and for Levels C and now E we got some more serious actress types as teachers. The teacher overheard some people making comments about her during our break, and when we got back, the teacher, already mad that a bunch of people returned late said "If you're going to talk about me at least wait until you're off the Second City premises". Everyone fell dead silent. We're still not sure exactly who she heard. Anyway, in this class we did:

3 Couples/Last Line - This was the strangest moment I've had in improv. This is where 3 couples each do their own scene, and can pick up with any line said by the previous couple. Our new teacher keeps on interrupting us during our scenes making suggestions, as opposed to our previous teacher who would let the scene go until the end, then make comments. Me and the girl I was with for this, the 45 year old, Kathy, got interrupted, and afterwards, Kathy couldn't get back into character. She was silent for awhile, and finally the teacher asked what was wrong, and Kathy said "Nope, that's it. I'm off line now. There's another conversation going on in my head. Nope, it's gone. I'm....that's it". We all stood there looking around at each other like "Okaaaaaay". I didn't know what to do. The teacher asked if Kathy was angry at her, and Kathy said "Ummmm, uh, yeah!". So the teacher told her to use that rage for our scene, but Kathy couldn't get back on track. Kathy apologized to me afterwards.

Sit, Stand, Lean, Kneel, Squat - 5 people did a scene where they each had to be in the positions listed, and as soon as anyone changed positions, another person would have to get into that position and justify it for the scene. My group was at a funeral. At one point I was squatting, and couldn't think of anything to say, and when a couple other people as their characters pointed out that I was being really quiet, luckily one guy Mike saved me by saying "Look, can't you see. He's crying" and then I was able to do something off of that.

New Choice - This was pretty fun. Me and Mike did a 2 person scene where we were pizza makers and were talking about my character's Mexican relatives that needed help. After any sentence, the teacher could yell "New choice", and you'd have to come up with a new sentence to replace the last one like "I live in a shack"...new choice!...."I live in a hotel"....new choice"...."I live in a cardboard box". When it's done onstage someone keeps ringing a bell to signal to make a new choice.

Panel Of Experts - 5 of us at a time sat in a row and we were all from some magazine. I was from "Men's Fitness". We'd get a question and would each answer it in the character you thought would be from that magazine. So I acted like a tough bodybuilder who somehow tied weighlifting into all my answers.