My Friend Dale

Curses! Did you think I didn’t know what you were up to? Well, I’m on to you, buddy!

What you might not know, my friend, is how badly I wanted to bail on it last night. I had it all planned out. I’d show up, ooops! A little bit later than I’d originally planned. Traffic, you know! And it totally would have been OK because it’s only 2 minutes. Those two minutes can easily be filled with more improv, or more break-time, sure. Everyone get more beer!

Well, I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t let you down. Not this time. Well, the material might let you down, but my physical inhabiting of the space at the time as scheduled was not to let you down. I couldn’t give you the satisfaction, of tuning in next month, and listening to me whine about how I STILL HAVEN’T DONE ANY STAND-UP!!! UGH!!!!

You tapped into this weird sense of duty, nay responsibility in me. You knew I couldn’t bail because you know how much I hate it when people fucking bail. I hate it hate it hate it Also, living with the guilt afterwards if I hadn’t done it. I’m very susceptible to guilt, (see: Catholic.)

So I did it. My two minutes (and then some, I’m sorry.)

Are you happy now Dale?

Thank you. I really needed that kick in the butt.

…And the blessed Irish shamrock with the fairest green of all

I recently finished working as a production coordinator on a TV show, the first TV show I’ve *really* worked for. (ie. gots paid)

One of the tasks to which I was assigned in my last job was to collect the scripts and segment descriptions from the Associate Producers on the show and send them to the hosts. The documents they would send are referred to as “greens” in newspeak. Three times a week I would send out an email to the APs asking if their greens were ready. Eventually, in an attempt to make this process more interesting for them, and for me, I started doing stuff like this:

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Right? That subject line makes you think!

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Getting creative with Google Translate.

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It’s true. Don’t go to Chicago for the fish.

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Then I started to incorporate imagery to my silly emails.

He’s not, for whatever that’s worth. He’s just the only one with “green” in his name that I could think of…

I sometimes made them relevant to the people I was working with… (we did fashion segments)

I incorporated some of my own taste…

Briefly turned into a greeting card company.

…Got political. (Not shown, the email where I just directed all the APs to the Green Party of Canada’s website, I must have deleted that one. Or CSIS had it removed from my PC.)

…Got Kermi-ed.

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…Got sporty.

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…Used idioms to describe my feels.

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Got market branding involved.

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…and finally sent them all off with an epic psych-out.

I feel like a few are missing, (I most definitely deleted the one where I sent a picture of a nice, healthy crop of marijuana.)

The point of sending them wasn’t to make a blog post out of them all. That was never the intention. But because it brought me joy to take a second out of my day to think of some silly way to make my co-workers day a little bit funnier, or happier, or at least to distract them for a millisecond, I thought I’d share them with you. I was, after all, pretty lucky to get to work there.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (Tomorrow)

Fridays @ the Yoga Studio w/The Young Geologists

Comedy in a yoga studio? It happens.

The Young Geologists, a sketch troupe featuring two of my favorite comedy peoples Erin Rodgers and Gillian English, host a monthly sketch/stand-up show at The Theatre Elusive, whose headquarters appear to be in a yoga studio, given the nice wooden floors and all the mats.

It wasn’t super packed, but what I got out of this space was a sense of community and support among performers and other comics and friends in the audience, which I think many might agree, can be hard to come by in this often competitive field. Also, just a solid night of comedy – the always hilarious stand-up of Luke Gordon Field, and some great sketches by The Whisky Dicks & The Young Geologists, both troupes I hadn’t yet seen perform, so it was great to finally get to see ’em!

The audience was warm and receptive and most stuck around afterwards to indulge in the complimentary beer, cookies and berries. It might not be huge, but this show is funny, warm, free and offers a space to perform on a Friday, which is awesome!

I was very pleased to be a part of this show and I look forward to doing it again sometime ! 🙂

A Select Few New Faces 2012

The roller coaster ride of the Humber Industry Show ended at the Dog’s Bollocks in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

We spent all day on Monday at the Second City, so for me, it felt like work, which is a good thing, even though I wasn’t getting paid. It’s just that, I work there… you see. So, it was nice to be able to consider the performance element of my time at the Second City as work and not have to rearrange chairs and clean up after people afterwards.

I haven’t written much about the process of preparing for the Industry Show, other than a few snippets here and there, but now that it’s over, and I’m no longer writing and re-writing Greece or Ma & Pa Brothel, I have time to reflect.

Reflect upon how unfair the process was to many of us and how were were told to suck it up because hey, that’s showbiz. And on my end, it sucks, because who’s going to recognize the girl who wrote the piece but only had one line and spent the rest of the time in the chorus?

Two events took place at the Dog’s Bollocks that metaphorically represent my feelings about the show and its process:

Dave Foley bought me beer and;
I got a parking ticket.

(OK, he bought beer for the whole table, but that lessens the metaphor, so stay with me here.)

This business, this school has been a series of ups and downs, wins and losses and, I guess all I can do is wish myself and my classmates the best of luck at braving the storm.

(Photo credit: Becky Moore)

clown college confessions

A Blog by Brie Watson

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