Sketchfest, Part I

It had been sometime since I had seen a live performance of the non-musical variety, so when I saw that this year’s lineup for Sketchfest included Dr. Katz and Kids in the Hall, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to jump back in the pool. There were two Dr. Katz performances, and I went to the second one, on Saturday January 19th.

The performance starts in Dr. Jonathan Katz’s office, with two chairs, facing each other on either side of a coffee table, illuminated by a single spot light, the rest of the stage left in darkness. Dr. Katz enters and takes a seat in the left chair. The right chair is empty. One of the show’s producers, Tom Snyder, is playing the theme music, which he also wrote, on a keyboard set up on the left side of the stage in the darkness. He then enters Dr. Katz’s office and sits down in the right chair. We learn that he is Dr. Katz’s therapist and will be sitting in on some of his sessions. First, though, they talk about what is going on with Jon. We learn that he has been contemplating retirement and that when he brought it up with Ben, his son, Ben did not react well. They discuss possible reasons for Ben’s poor reaction for a while, all the while entertaining us with their banter.

Eventually Laura pages in and says that Jon’s next patient has arrived. In walks Andy Kindler, who seems surprised to see someone other than Dr. Katz in the office. They explain to Andy that Jon’s therapist is observing him as part of his own therapy and will be sitting in on the session if Andy is okay with that, to which Andy replies absolutely not. So, Tom makes his way over to the chair in front of the keyboard, out of the spotlight’s reach, and Andy takes his seat across from Dr. Katz. In my opinion, Andy’s banter with Jon was the best in the show, with the usual self-referential Jewish humor from Andy and a lot of Jon trying to keep his composure at the hilarious ad lib stuff Andy was throwing out. After about 10 minutes, the music comes on and Dr. Katz gives his typical line of ‘You know what the music means…” Andy leaves the stage and Tom returns.

After a few minutes of additional banter between the two of them, Tom mentions what a lovely girl Laura is, to which Dr. Katz replies, “Really? I don’t get that from her…” Tom then mentions that Laura had to take off and she wanted Tom to bring in the patients in her absence. The surprise guest of the night, B. J. Novak of the Office (the American version), is the next patient to make an appearance. Again, they ask him if he minds the session being observed and again, he declines, so Tom makes his way back over to the keyboard. The banter between B. J. and Jon was actually fairly slow, with a lot of long pauses, at least by ad lib / sketch comedy standards. There were a few choice moments, but I was mostly ready for the show to move along to the next segment. Again, the music finally plays, and B. J. makes his exit as Tom returns.

After another short back and forth between Tom and Jon, the last patient, Eugene Mirman, makes his way in. They of course ask Eugene if he minds being observed by Dr. Katz therapist. At first, he seems amenable. but after he tries out sitting in Tom’s lap, since there are no extra chairs, he decides it wouldn’t be comfortable, so Tom wanders out. Eugene was actually pretty good, but still not as good as Andy. He made a few jokes directed at breaking down the facade that Tom was in some other room and couldn’t hear them, starting with asking Tom a question directly, although still in character. Of course that kind of humor is always funnier in the context, as it’s directed at ruining the context you’ve been suspending yourself in for some time prior to the joke.

After the final music plays and Eugene leaves, Tom returns and announces that there is still someone else in the waiting room. Jon seems confused because Eugene was his last scheduled appointment of the day. As they are about to go see who it is, Jon Benjamin, who of course played Dr. Katz’s son Ben on the show, walks in, looking as if he just rolled out of bed and threw something on. He is, after all, a man of leisure. Their entire shtick centered around Ben asking Jon to borrow money to open a wine shop, which he proposes to call Wine Kampf. Again, Jon is trying to maintain his composure as Ben is on a roll. Of course, Jon is not keen on lending him any money. Jon finally dismisses Ben and Tom comes back in.

When Jon first entered the stage at the beginning of the show, he was using a cane. Throughout the show, I noticed that his left hand was often partially fisted and he was holding his left arm at a slightly awkward angle for much of the show as well. During the final few minutes of the show, Tom poses to Jon that they discuss the real reason that he’s considering retirement. Jon pauses for a minute and Tom says, “So what is it?” Jon replies, “Darn, I was hoping you knew!” Tom says that there seems to be an elephant in the room that no one wants to mention. Jon finally relents and reveals that he has been living with MS. Now, I actually didn’t know that before the show, but it certainly explains the things I observed during it. I was a little surprised and saddened of course. I found it interesting that they chose to incorporate it into the show in that manner, and also entirely appropriate. It’s impossible to know how quickly someone afflicted with MS can go downhill and I’m glad that I got this special opportunity to enjoy Dr. Katz one last time in such a unique format, relative to its original medium.

FAIL

Spotted on a parking meter in downtown Burlingame last night:

So Many Screenshots…

I played WoW a bit over the holiday break and accumulated a lot of screen shots that need sharing. Most of them are related to neat Christmas themed skins.

This first set of pictures shows a skin they handed out for a Christmas mount. I used it on my flying mount and flew around Shadowmoon Valley. I love the magical holiday dust trailing from his hooves as he gallops through the air.

I used the transmogrifier by the airship tower by the Undercity and was turned into a gnome.

When I got back to Durotar, I used the transmogrifier by the airship tower there and got turned into a slightly less hairy gnome. I then holiday mount skin on my wolf and ran around in full Christmas themed skin style.

I can’t remember where I got it, but I had a broom in my inventory, perhaps left over from Halloween, that I finally decided to give a try. It was pretty fun, and funny looking, to fly around on. However, I didn’t realize it wasn’t truly a flying broomstick and when I took it over the edge of Aldor’s Rise, I fell to my death.

Finally, last night, I got two new pieces of armor for the first time in a long while. Unfortunately, they were both helmets and the one I liked the look of more had the lesser stats. I ended up going with the Stalker’s Helmet of Second Sight.