4.03.2005

every time, I end up telling the story

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: "Cold As Ice" by Foreigner

April Fool's Weekend with the Ship of Fools was hilarious pretty much non-stop. A recap:

Show: PSUB Improv Comedy Night
Venue: Purdue Memorial Union North Ballroom
Audience: ~300 paying Purdue University students
Fools: 6
Comments: Ship of Fools and the Crazy Monkeys competing for laughs at the Union. I was with the group but not performing. Almost died from catered food, including pizza gravy and something approximating vegan food. The show went really well and our normal animosity with the Monkeys was kept to a minimum (borderline friendship, dare I say?). Sarah, Ashley, Alex, and Shannon all came and watched. I really liked "Dead Monkeys" from our rival group, and Matt should've won Do-Rap. From what I hear it was a much better show than the last time we tried this sort of thing.
Unofficial winner: Fools.

Show: SCUM road gig
Venue: Santa Claus United Methodist church
Audience: ~400 quiet but attentive church members from age 6 to 66
Fools: 6
Comments: 4 hour drive to southern Indiana to Wes's hometown to be the opening act for a professional comedian. My first improv show. Everybody there was extremely biblical but nice, including homemade lasagne waiting for us. I was very nervous, but after the show the Fools said that it was a really tough crowd. Acoustics seems to be the leading culprit for the average show (not a lot of participation or laughter). Time flies on stage but I still managed to crank out some funny. Two little kids came up to me after the show and told me about their improv at Destination Imagination...it was adorable. We stayed and watched Craig Tornquist afterwards from our seats "reserved for entertainers". From what I gathered, we garnered as least as much applause as he did. And we're amateurs.
Unofficial winner: Fools.

My new favorite college activity is road trips (the rocks are crying!). I love visiting new places for a day or two, especially when people are as nice as the Allens. Wes and his (ex-Fool) brother Chuck took care of the troupe while we were in Santa Claus. Everything in this little town was Christmas-y, even their house. I got sick of it in less than 24 hours. Still, it was very cute and small town-y. They made us pancakes for breakfast and gave us bags of chocolates.

I don't think we stopped making jokes for the entire weekend (attack of the triple integrals!). I rode with Paul, Benji, and Ashley and they gave me complete control of the radio where I unleashed my inner Wayne Brady upon the unsuspecting Fools in the car. Benji spearheaded the hazing of the rookie with a vicious barrage of height jokes, but I took it like a Fool. Apparently John and I combined make up a Chuck in terms of comedy and size. I almost ended up stealing Wes's fiancee away from Benji the "doctor". Since the majority of us are engineers/scientists the jokes started sounding like this:

Benji: so scientists haven't exactly gotten to 0 Kelvin just yet
Ryan: that's so cold the electrons stop entirely, right?
Wes: it's more like localized kinetic energy that's zero relative to the other particles, but essentially yes
Paul: if you try to measure it you warm it up
Ryan: if you think about it you warm it up
Paul: I think we'd need a new state of matter for that
Ryan: Plasma II?
Paul: that's like the total opposite...zero movement versus a stream of superheated ions
Ryan: so, 1/plasma...trademark it...plasma ^ -1
Wes: you have to trade something then
Ryan: "I supercooled an element to zero K and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"


We're much funnier on stage, I promise.


Perhaps the only time I wasn't smiling was when the SCUM (the people at this church seriously wear shirts that say "the SCUM of the earth"...I love it) comedian was quizzing audience members. His whole act was a bit preachy ("I have seen delight!") but that's cool, y'know, play to your audience, right? He kept emphasizing his act as wholesome and clean. Something he thought Jesus would approve of and would laugh at. It struck me odd, then, when he asked

Q: What's the best way to deal with your anger?
A: A night of heavy drinking
B: Kick an atheist you think you can outrun
C: Pray at church and talk to god

I was stunned. Kick an atheist you think you can outrun? I tried looking at it from many different angles or perspectives, or even religious standpoints, but I really really didn't see how that presents an acceptance of all views. It even sounded insulting from a secular view. It kinda sounds like he jokes about abusing heathen non-believers as a stress relief. A sort of atheist stress-ball tactic. Good thing he did a spot-on Alf impression, or I would've kicked him.

Also, remind me next time never to travel through Indiana during "spring forward" time. Indiana has three time zones depending on what county you're in. So here we are, driving through all these corn fields and the time is changing, but we're changing time zones, then the time changes some more, then we change timezones again, then we switch time officially, but we go back to the original time zone...oh I think I've gone crosseyed. I think we're Eastern Standard now, while the rest of my Ohio friends are an hour ahead. I think.

Update: April 8th
Ship of Fools Captain Paul K. also wrote about this weekend. His post contains a few things mine doesn't.

Aside from the improv, this is going to be one crazy week. I have a physics review Monday night and I might try to make it to the Boeing lecture. Tuesday evening is my physics exam (something like six chapters of material). Wednesday I have practice and need to finish both of my lab papers for chemistry (thermo and entropy) and physics (impulse and forces) labs. Thursday evening is my calculus exam (prepare to be owned by power series). Friday my Napoleon Dynamite paper rough draft is due, plus SoF meeting. Saturday is the National Rube Goldberg contest in the Armory here at Purdue. Sunday is a benefit SoF concert for "Relay For Life" doing comedy to fight cancer at 4am. Monday is my chemistry exam (more equilibrium and thermo). I don't know how I'm going to do it, exactly, but I bet it involves a lot of Mt. Dew, late nights, tests, and a lot of comedy.



...crazy Utahraptor

1 comment:

  1. ha... I saw Napolean Dynamite this past weekend ...HILARIOUS!!

    Congatulations on the performance

    as for that comedian... actually I think it was Jesus who said:
    "Love thy neighbor... and kick an atheist" :P

    some ppl :(

    ReplyDelete