MTX

On January 25th, I went to see the Mr. T Experience at the Bottom of the Hill in the city. I have seen them numerous times before and always thoroughly enjoy their performance. The last lineup I saw was Frank, Joel, and Jym (my favorite lineup in fact), so needless to say it has been a while. The lineup now is Frank and Jym plus the newest members, Ted Angel and Bobby Jordan. I hadn’t ever seen the latter two, so I didn’t recognize Ted despite the fact that he was standing next to me for much of the Hi-Fives performance. He kind of reminds me of Giovanni Ribisi. Add to that my attraction to younger guys, and I was content with the eye candy he was providing. Frank was also wandering around, looking either tired or drunk. I’m not sure which, but I know from first hand experience that pushing yourself to do the same things as you get older can wear you down. I think his wife was there, too. I have no idea what she looks like, but Jordan was with me and he thought it looked like her.

The Hi-Fives aren’t really my kind of thing, so I waited patiently for their set to end, and was happy when it finally did. Then, MTX came out and did their thing. There were some songs from their more recent albums, Alcatraz and Road to Ruin, that I didn’t recognize. They also played a ton of great classics, including Sackcloth and Ashes, Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba, I Fell For You, You’re the Only One, Hell of Dumb, Swallow Everything, The History of the Concept of the Soul, King Dork, …And I Will Be With You, and More Than Toast. I did notice that either Ted or Bobby (not sure which, maybe both) was off key on a number of occasions, sometimes enough so that it messed Frank up and pulled him off key as well. I know I am biased, but Joel really did a great job of singing back up. Their voices were great together.

They were gracious enough to do two encores, after the audience chanting MTX repeatedly. I find chanting creepy, so I didn’t participate in that, but I did my part with cheering and clapping. Frank noted at the beginning of the second encore that he was getting to old to keep playing so many songs. It was definitely strange, first of all, seeing Frank looking as old as he does now, but also seeing him singing with guys that are probably younger than me! Regardless, I had a good time and I’m glad I went.

Garden Update

Sketchfest, Part II

In addition to the Dr. Katz performance, I also went to see the Kids in the Hall performance on the last night of sketchfest, Saturday January 26th. I had seen them once back in 2000 when I still lived in Houston and loved the performance. The only thing I can remember now was a great Buddy Cole sketch, as well as the “Jesus 2000″ sketch, both of which were hilarious. The sketchfest performance was equally wonderful and included numerous sketches that apparently appeared in their performance at the 25th Annual “Just for Laughs” (“Juste Pour Rire”) Comedy Festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

They opened with a sketch about the Kids planning a new show. For the opening, they decide they should rape Kevin to the theme from “Footloose”. Kevin proposes raping Bruce instead, but Scott points out that raping Bruce isn’t funny and Mark agrees, stating that raping Bruce is “just redundant”. Poor Kevin…

Next, Bruce and Mark reappear as salesmen promoting a device which can siphon fat from the American gut and use it to power automobiles. There was a fairly disturbing graphic demonstrating how the device would work.

I’m not sure of the exact order of things after that, but at some point, we are introduced to the time machine theme. The lights come up on Kevin sitting in a chair, clearly drunk. An also obviously drunk Dave enters and sits in the chair next to Kevin. We hear the bartender announce last call. Kevin places his order and then scoffs when Dave only orders one beer. After arguing about what a waste of last call a one beer order is for a few minutes, Dave finally reveals to Kevin that he has created a time machine with which he can “defeat last call”. Kevin refuses to believe him, stating that he was certain that if Dave had created a time machine, he would use it for far more important or noble causes than defeating last call, such as going back in time to kill Hitler before the holocaust happens. Dave looks dejected and then says he has to go to the bathroom. He wanders out, dons his time machine helmet briefly, and then re-enters the bar, at which point he sits back in the chair next to Kevin. We hear the bartender once again announce last call, and then the stage lights go down.

The time machine concept was used two other times during the show. The second featured Dave in bed with his wife, played by Bruce. Bruce announces that it’s Dave’s birthday and that means time for his b-day BJ. A short simulation of said BJ commences and afterward, Bruce asks Dave why he only wants BJs on his b-day, why wouldn’t he want it more often. Dave replies that doing it more than that would just cheapen it, after which he says he needs to go to the bathroom. We then see him wander out, don his time machine helmet for a bit, and then climb back into bed. Bruce then awakens and again announces that it’s Dave’s birthday, at which the stage lights go down.

The third time machine sketch starts with Dave wandering through time with his helmet on. Finally, he takes it off and enters a bar where Hitler is having a beer. Hitler offers to buy Dave a beer. As they drink Dave makes a comment to Hitler about his hatred of the Jews, to which Hitler responds “I never thought of that before…” as the lights go down.

Another sketch featured couple Dave and Kevin (as the wife) showing up to see the new baby of another couple that they are friends with, played by Mark and Bruce (as the wife). Bruce brings the baby out and hands it to Dave. Then he and Mark wander off for a bit. At that point, Dave begins to lament over having to hold the baby because it is so hateful. Kevin laughs it off until he gets a look at the baby’s face. At that point, they begin arguing over who has to hold the horribly hateful baby. When Mark and Bruce return, Dave and Kevin end up revealing how they feel about the baby, at which point they are thrown out of the house. Once they are gone, Mark turns to Bruce and says, “So I guess it’s not just us” and the lights go down.

Of course they threw in a Chicken Lady sketch. Dave shows up at her house for a blind date and freaks out when he sees her. She thwarts his attempts to get away and ultimately offers him an omelette, which he accepts. He seems to be enjoying it until she mentions the eggs are fresh lain from her body, at which point he makes a final break for it and succeeds. My reaction to this sketch was dramatic, but more visceral than comedic. Chicken Lady always has that effect on me (and many others I’m sure) – it’s just so disturbing to watch.

Another sketch featured Dave and Kevin fighting over an imaginary girlfriend. Dave shows up at Kevin’s house in the middle of the night to make a confession. He’s been imaginary cheating with Kevin’s imaginary girlfriend. They get into a big (and humorous) fight about it. Dave tells Kevin that it’s his fault for always describing her to him. Finally they decide to let her choose who she wants to be with. They each sit down and close their eyes. Kevin then announces that he imagined that she chose him. Dave replies that *he* imagined that she chose *him*. Kevin says, “Really?”, to which Dave dejectedly replies “No…”, and the stage lights dim.

In another sketch, a gay couple, played by Dave and Scott, show up at the home of another gay couple, Peter and the Professor (played by Kevin and Mark). As they wait at the door, Scott tells Dave to play along like they are still together because he doesn’t want Peter and the Professor gloating about their fancy Canadian marriage. Apparently there has been recent turmoil in their relationship, as Dave has been involved with a woman. They are finally let into the house and Scott does an awful job of hiding the fact that they are having problems. The Professor’s niece, who is visiting him, comes in, a giggling slutty looking blonde, played by Bruce. Scott decides to wander off with her as a slight against Dave. The Professor projects what’s going on in the other room from a hidden camera up on his wall. We see Scott doing nasty things to the Professor’s niece, at which point, it is finally revealed what is going on between Dave and Scott. Scott reenters the room and the Professor proceeds to explain the homosexual male dynamic from a “scientific” standpoint. He explains how Scott, the “alpha fag” has had his masculinity threatened by Dave going outside the relationship and is now attempting to reassert himself. Ultimately the Professor’s explanation leads to a reconciliation and everyone is happy again.

Other great sketches included a Buddy Cole monologue in which he proposes that Jesus was in fact a homosexual, Kevin performing a song in the three-chord structure which he has not finished writing as of the show, a Gavin sketch in which he annoys his neighbor (Kevin) as he tries to paint a chair, and Superdrunk – a superhero who stops crimes by drinking (played by Bruce), assisted by his trusty sidekick, the Bartender (Dave).

The evening ended with Mr. Tyzik appearing on screen with a video camera, which was being projected onto the large screen on stage. He interacted with a few audience members and each time concluded the conversation by crushing their heads, which we got to view from the usual perspective via the on-stage screen. He then called out the rest of the crew. He went down the line, laying out a vicious verbal attack and then finishing each one off with a brutal head crushing!

The Kids came out for a few words after that, but there was no encore. I left thoroughly satisfied.

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.

Observation Deck Pictures

These are a little belated, but I have some photos from the trail ride in Henry Cowell Redwood State Park from a few weekends ago. At the top of the hill that we rode up is a clearing and an observation deck. There was a little automatic waterer for the horses as well as a place to tie them off while riders go up to look at the view. I went up and took some pictures. The view was amazing and you could see forever, but I wasn’t really able to capture that in the photos.

Woot!

I couldn’t get my camera to focus properly, but you get the idea.

The Flying Tortelli Brothers

Apache and I have been working on simple lead changes for a looong time now (over a year), both when I hack him alone and with my trainer. This week, we started working on flying lead changes. We had done one or two lessons a while back trying to get some out of him, but with little to no success, and then it just sort of fell off the radar due to other things we were working on. Now that Apache is more familiar with and confident at jumping, it’s a little easier to lay some poles down and get him to move up over the pole and actually jump over it, in order to ask for the lead change when his feet are off the air. On Tuesday, we asked for him to switch from his right lead to his left lead, which is his better one as we jumped a pole on the diagonal. He gave it to me twice, even if it was accompanied with a lot of big bucking, out of the four or five tries. We worked on it again tonight, this time going from his good lead to his bad one (left to right) and he did just as well. On the second try he gave it to me right over the pole when I asked after one big buck. The other three times, I had to circle him up and keep asking until he finally swapped, but he gave it to me easier each time. Considering it was the hard swap and that he’s pretty new to all of this, I was entirely thrilled that I got an immediate swap on one of the tries. I am excited to be working on flying changes finally and can’t wait to see the progress. My trainer says I can expect bucking for the first year or so, although it should become less violent.

Blazin’ Saddles

On October 27th, my friends, the Foxes, who board at my barn, were kind enough to haul Apache and I up to Felton for a trail ride. Our friend Libby has her Spotted Saddle Horse, Ice, in training there with Nicole Schoppe (of Hidden Gait Ranch) at the stables by the Felton Covered Bridge. The Foxes also have their Walking Horse, Gunner, in training there. We stopped by the barn for a little bit to visit with Ice and Gunner and some other clients of Nicole’s that I know (both equine and human). Mick and I then left and drove Apache and Twister, one of the Foxes’ other horses, over to Henry Cowell Redwood State Park. Nicole, Libby, and Linda hopped on their mounts and rode over to meet us there. We then went on a two and half hour trail ride through the forest on the hills. It was so amazing. The grades were pretty steep both up and down and Apache was so good. He rocked back and took all the descents nice and slow, being careful about where he stepped. On the uphills, we let them canter up a lot of the steeper parts where there were support beams built into the trails to help people up. Apache jumped them all! There was one part where there was a wide part of the trail that was uphill, but not super steep and the footing was nice and even with no roots, holes, or undergrowth. We let them gallop all the way up that section of the trail, about 1/4 mile, maybe more. Apache looooooved that part. It was quite a blast. I’m just glad we didn’t come around any corners to find hikers in the middle of the path. That would not have been pretty. I cannot wait until we go again. The Foxes go semi-regularly to check on Gunner’s progress, so it shouldn’t be too long!

Libby got a few pictures of Apache and Twister playing in the river and then Apache prancing back up the embankment. When we got to the top, he gave a big excited buck and my water bottle went flying out of my saddle bag. A friendly hiker was standing there and handed it back up to me.