http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbMecAxsCvI

"The Treaty", a sketch written by Alan S. Dalinka and performed in the show "Abandon Relationship!" -- January 19, 2007, produced by The Second City Training Center Chicago upon the completion of Level 5 of The Writing Program. Full credits for the show on the poster at: http://alandalinka.com/abandon/ Video by Alan

I know, I know.... I haven't posted for a very long time .... and certainly, nothing about my own efforts to perform improv. So, I'm back.

I'm currently performing on one of CSz' Rec League teams -- Grand Theft Awesome

I've performed with the team twice so far -- most recently last Wednesday, July 23 -- and we're performing again on July 30. Come check out our show at the new ComedySportz Theatre, 929 W. Belmont and buy a few drinks -- the more you drink, the funnier we seem. Show time is 8 p.m. and the whole evening is FREE (but, of course, not the drinks)!

Regards,

Alan

Check out my PhotoBlog with nearly live postings from Walt Disney World. The postings began on 12/30, so if you don't see that on the first page, be sure to visit the December archive too. Regards...

When in Las Vegas, go see The Second City at The Flamingo. There are quite a few recent Chicago improvisers in the cast, including Robyn Norris -- thanks for the ticket.

Earlier tonight was supposedly my last Battle-Prov show at The Spot. Indeed, if that's the case, it was also my last regularly-scheduled performance with DragonFly as it's currently constituted. It's been a fun and fairly fast six months from the 100º+ days of July at Fizz to the sub-zero temps and wind-chills of February at The Spot. In all, I've performed 12 shows in that time and if you go back through the blog, you can read about each -- with two of my performances being parts of "special" shows which weren't with DragonFly per se -- the "men of Battle-Prov" show and the Glut. So that means, 10 shows with DragonFly... hats off to my teammates.

This show: Our team was only four tonight - Keri Jo (Captain), Mike, Gabriel and me. That, of course, meant lots of stage time. We opened with Rap-Line and to my (horror or honor, I'm not sure which), I almost won -- I was the last member of my team standing! Our Ref, Kat, runs a tight show -- even when it's her coached team we're playing and tonight was no exception. The other team played a Rock Opera. We played Script (a combination of "blind line" and "stage directions" with Kat sending the three guys (including me) out of the room. I just managed to avoid the "do a cartwheel" direction which Gabriel picked up and made the best of. I did pick up "hold a foot smelling contest" which was interesting.... We then played Story which I won (we had lots of lay-ons round-by-round, including, to my amusement, Russian accent which I've always thought I do pretty well). We took a half-time break (which was a bit surprising since we haven't had one of those in a long time). After the break, we played Crazy - Mixed-up -Hyjinx (sp? - a head-to-head), Oscar Winning Song (which I mostly sat out of since I'd played everything else -- I say mostly, since I added some sounds from off stage and voice for the final song). The other team played a game whose name I never quite remember, it's something like "Catch Phrase" where a bunch of suggestions of advertising tags are obtained from the audience while a team member is out of the room and that person has to guess them. Our closing game was "Potpourri" a mix of 185, Celebrity To Do List, World's Worst, and Last Action Joke. In the end, to no surprise, we didn't win -- but, it wasn't a "real" competition anyway....

Well, it's 12:30 a.m. I'm burning discs of "Abandon Relationship" for the cast, writers, musical director and director as I watch Battlestar Galactica (best show on TV right now if you ask me). It's nice to have the video....I already miss the show!

G'night.

I know...I know...I founded this blog on the idea that after each show I was somehow involved with, I'd post something so that later I could go back and see what I was up to during these early blog days.... so, despite the fact that I had a Battle-Prov show this past Sunday (2-11-2007), I've posted nothing. Maybe I was distracted by the fact that our prior show was cancelled.... maybe it's been so long since I last performed in an improv show that I lost the blog instinct. Okay, whatever...

So for this last show, I was captain 'cause I won the pick-a-number thingy our Coach likes to do to have us pick such things -- of course, in this case, that was weeks ago when we were supposed to perform the night of the AFC Championship....but I digress.

We're still doing shows at The Spot....but those days are winding down. In fact, I thought this could be our last show together as a team at The Spot. While I thought that on Sunday, yesterday Matt Elwell emailed us that we'd do another show on 2-25. Then today Steph DeW... sent an email saying we'd be performing this weekend...so, okay, I dunno...

Anyway, the opposing team was captained by my old friend Chris Yurwitz. Our opening "trivia question" to begin the show (offered up by our Host, Matt E) was whether Rene Descartes was a rationalist or something else. I said rationalist -- he's a math guy -- Chris said Communist...despite the fact that Chris is also a math guy. I won. We played Da Doo Ron Ron (though I didn't), we won that, we played replay (though I didn't) with the suggestions Dada, Cheerleaders and Reggae (sp?). The other team played Lounge Lizard, we played Chain Murder Mystery with the waitress as our volunteer, they played forward/reverse, and we closed with B-Movie with each member of my team at one point or another throwing ourselves out to the game (due to language) and meeting up at the bar at the back of the house). It was actually a very fun show and it was more in keeping with the old BP format than some of those weird ones I've written about before.

Chris said that it was his last BP show, so hat's off to him. He's been on a team since BP started about a year and a half ago or so....

And that's it. Auditions for the Ensemble are coming up....my schedule doesn't really permit that right now, so, hopefully, they'll keep me around for the next incarnation of Battle-Prov when the new Belmont St. Theatre is completed this spring. In the meantime, I guess we have one or two more shows at The Spot. Watch this space to find out more.... and maybe some writing news one of these days.

Regards.

Well, it had to happen. No...not an actual relationship.... As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've completed The Second City Training Center's Writing Program and just a few hours ago saw the close of our "graduation" show which we entitled "Abandon Relationship!" The show ran to full houses at Donny's Skybox Theatre, Piper's Alley, Chicago for five weeks. It was really an incredible experience to co-write and produce what probably correctly can be called a "smash hit" based on the feedback we got. Anyway, I'll write some more about this experience some time...but the short of it was: great instructor/director, great cast, great musical director and a great mix of writers that produced material that turned out, well...great.

I shot video of the show on January 19, 2007. Below are the opening and closing musical numbers. I wrote the opener, "Chicago is Your Nanny Now". Yvonne Zusel wrote the closer, "Shot Number Three". The music for both was written by Phil Nohl and the cast of David Flora, Kat Leahy, Neal Dandade, Giselle Alverio, Gina Reynolds and Aaron Reuter, was directed by Kiff Vanden Huevel. Second City's Jason Flowers was the Technical Director. Enjoy.

"Chicago is Your Nanny Now"


"Shot Number Three"

©2007

Preview of next major post -- this one will be day-by-day or so...I may not get around to fleshing it out for awhile (though that depends on the weather). [Nah...didn't happen, see Addendum.]

O'Hare: finally an internet connection that works at only $6.95, but the flight boarded on time (though we had to wait for runway reconfiguration).

Thrifty Rent-a-Car -- good price is about all I can say.

Wal-Mart Orlando style -- poor checkout lanes and biggots in line who think they're being nice.

Disney's BoardWalk Villas: Welcome Home...go the wrong way... clean up and take the boat to Epcot.

Epcot -- Renew the annual pass around 6:45 p.m., through the turnstyle and off to American Adventure, Reflections of China, El Rio de Tiempo (Mexico), clean bathrooms, kill sometime and yet another new place to watch Illuminations (with the Holiday Tag with Walter Chronkite) and a new SIEMENS ad in laser-writing on Space Ship Earth after the show.... off to the monorail to the TTC and then the Magic Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom just before 10:30 p.m. Time for SpectroMagic by the flagpole, follow the parade to Tomorrow Land -- Space Mountain has no Fast Pass and the line's too long. Ride the TTA, see the Progress, back near the Hub (by the TeaCups and TomorrowLand) for the Midnight Fantasy in the Sky Fireworks, now it's Extra Magic Hours (midnight), Pooh, Snow White, Small World, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, Pirates, one last try in TomorrowLand for Space Mountain but the line is too long at 2:15 a.m. so it's a quick ride on the no-wait Buzz Lightyear and then down Main Street and off to the "magical bus experience" that eventually gets me to BoardWalk at 3 a.m.

As I write this, it's New Year's Eve. Studios by Noon by boarding the boat at the Swan (b/c I missed it at BoardWalk), get a FastPass at Rock'n'Roller Coaster, Stand-by (so almost no seat) for the Indy show, almost no line at Star Tours, no more Fast Pass at the Motors stunt show, Beauty & The Beast, Backstage tram, got in to Motors stunt show at around the 4100 mark (for the 4:10 p.m. show), Fast Pass return time for the Coaster was 4:45, so back over there, ride the ride and then the boat back to the Swan (it's a shorter walk than riding 2 more stops). With the smallest bit of rain, lots of tourists in panchos ... oh yea, and Ugly Betty is everywhere in the park today (photos to come).

Dinner's done...shower next and over to Epcot for New Year's Eve.

[Addendum of January 17, 2007

Okay, truth be told, I'm not a blogger or a day-by-day trip reporter. I thought for awhile that I'd be able to do this as a daily trip report, but the fact is that I enjoy my vacation time just too much to spend the wee hours writing and accounting for what I've done and my impressions along the way. On the whole, a few closing comments from this trip....

Epcot was very crowded again this New Year's Eve. I got to the park toward the end of the early showing of Illuminations (about 7:30 p.m.) First task: get the annual "free" hat and horn. Unfortunately, a fairly uninformed cast member told me that they'd run out. I think the reality was that the "Island at France" (as it seems to be called -- the island between the International Gateway and the France Pavilion) distribution point either ran out or shut down for the Illuminations showing. I knew that there was no way that Epcot was out of hats and horns....so I headed off to the next-most-obvious distribution point: The American Adventure. Sure enough, lots of hats and horns....

On the whole, there seemed to be fewer "entertainment" locations than in the past -- Japan was missing it's video DJ for one and the video DJ set up at the edge of Future World seemed smaller. In the hours I was back in the park, I stuck to my strategy of going to places that can handle large numbers of people -- I went to the Universe of Energy (it pulls in a good number of people and eats 45 min.), I went to the surprisingly open Wonders of Life pavilion and rode Body Wars probably for the last time (the ridefilm is in really sad shape). I think I also rode Spaceship Earth on that night (again, high ride-through numbers, 10-15 min. of ride time).

I hung out for awhile at the video DJ set-up in future world. I was introduced to a mass-audience craze that apparently relates to a 2003 video by the Fast Food Rockers called, simply enough, the Fast Food Song. It has dance moves (apparently taken from the video which I have since found on YouTube) and the unforgettable lyric: "A Pizza Hut, A Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut...McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut."

As midnight approached, the video DJ location shut down (which I thought was rather strange). I walked over toward World Showcase Lagoon and tried to note the way the flames were blowing from the torches. For the first time in years, though, I seemed to have read them wrong (or the wind was swirling). During the Illuminations run-up to midnight, the smoke got pretty thick, so I spent the various country's new year's fireworks celebrations (which runs up to the final countdown) walking past the Canada pavilion and off toward the U.K. As always, the Epcot new year's fireworks were spectacular. Perhaps, even more amazing, though, was that the spot I eventually found myself in (near the bridge near the International Gateway) had a great view of the Disney-MGM Studios fireworks (which went on well-past midnight since, unlike Epcot, that show doesn't start 20 min. before midnight).

My vacation continued through the evening of December 6 (when I got another fantastic view-point from which to watch Illuminations -- the sometimes "reserved" area in front of Italy). My flight home on December 7 was scheduled for 9 a.m. which, to use Magical Express for my luggage, required checking in at the front desk around 5 a.m. and getting the rental car and gassing it back up just after 6 a.m.

Unlike my prior trips at this time of year, the parks never really emptied out during the week. Usually, after Jan. 2, you get the place pretty much to yourself. Animal Kingdom, for example, was crazy busy on the days I visited. In part, I think, owing to the new Finding Nemo: The Musical (which is a quality show in the old theater where Tarzan Rocks used to play, but now totally indoors). The songs (which there were none of in the movie) were written by the guys who put together Avenue Q (which I saw last x-mas in Vegas). The lines for this show were massive, and if you didn't get there early, you actually risked not getting in. The other big draw at AK, of course, is Expedition Everest. I was glad that I had visited back in May, because the first time I was at AK, Everest was down and being evacuated and the next time, I waited in the single-rider line for about 40+ min. It's a good ride, but I don't like waiting around if I can help it....Fast Passes were out of the question because, quite simply, they're gone early in the day when the park's as crowded as it was when I was there. I did see some interesting animal behavior on the Safari, some "prancing" and running by some of the Tommies or other similar animals on the savannah that our driver claimed to have never seen before too (but you never know what to believe).

Over the course of the week plus, I saw Fantasmic! from probably the best seat I ever had because I got there when the gates opened an hour and a half before the show; I saw the Osborn Family (newly Dancing) Lights (though one night I went to see it and they shut them off as soon as I got there because it was raining which it did quite a bit more of on this trip than any other); saw Wishes at the Magic Kingdom from the perfect spot in front of the Castle; and rode all of the rides I usually expect to ride (except Splash Mountain because it was down for 3 week rehab the day after I decided not to ride it because of a line and Peter Pan because I'm just not waiting an hour for it).

The weather, as noted above, on this year's trip was not as good as other years. It was muggy and much warmer (mid-80s). It rained a few times. But, I managed to only get one blister on my foot of note (that's also much fewer than normal). I also seemed to buy pretty close to the right amount of food at the beginning of the trip (just one $3.50 2-liter purchase of Diet Coke on the last day and a bottle or two of water in the parks) such that I kept my costs down.

Thus, on the whole, lots of miles were walked, gallons of sweat were shed and a good time was had.

See you on a future blog entry...okay? End of Addendum.]

Some details added .... highlights: The Price Is Right Live on Stage! (real sets, audience plays but I didn't get to Come on Down!), Wayne Newton Holiday Show (who knew he could play violin, guitar, banjo, piano and give lighting cues?), an ESPN Zone recliner watching the Bears on Feed 6 (and about a dozen other games and the middle-aged woman with a cardboard date dressed in some sort of plastic and Mrs. Claus outfit), The Beatles LOVE (this must be what an acid trip is like), Second City Las Vegas (lots of Chicagoans in the cast but the traditional chairs are gone in favor of the bases of office rolling chairs probably left over from the days they used to perform the office chair ballet -- but almost no improv), and other stories....

The full story...

As I've done for 13 of the past 15 years, I made a Christmas trek to Las Vegas (and the two years I didn't go at x-mas I went at Thanksgiving). As you might guess, like Chinese restaurants and movie theaters, most of Las Vegas (and particularly the Strip) doesn't close for Christmas. Of course, years ago, when I first started making this trip, the Casinos weren't very crowded over x-mas -- that's increasingly no longer the case as this year's trip shows. Maybe Albert Brooks' character in LOST IN AMERICA had it right: Las Vegas is the Christmas Place to Be ... now everyone sing "The Desert Inn Has Heart".

Well, anyway, from the brief summary above that I wrote while I was in Las Vegas, you can see that in keeping with the LOST IN AMERICA theme, this year I was one of the schmucks who went to see Wayne Newton. (If you don't get that reference, and the prior two, you really need to see this film.) Before I went on this year's trip, I bought tickets to LOVE and, yes, Wayne Newton because I've never seen Mr. Las Vegas perform (other than in Vegas Vacation, one of the bond films and a few things on TV) and I've been trying over the years to get to see all of the classic Vegas acts. Yes, I even managed to see Sigfried & Roy on a trip years before the career-ending tiger incident that is now the reason why The Beetles Love plays at the Mirage.

For this year's adventure, I scheduled a flight departing after work on Friday before x-mas. Because I chose one of the busiest days for travel the air fares this year to Vegas were well-out-of-the-usual $200-$250 range I have found over the years. Because I didn't make Premier on United for this year and won't for 2007, I decided to use miles. Indeed, I decided to use miles on American since I collected them so long ago and so rarely fly the airline that features that 1980's and early 1990's staple: the MD-80/Super 80 by McDonnell Douglas -- a company that doesn't even exist as a separate entity any more since Boeing acquired it sometime in the last decade. Yes, friends, the folks that brought us the DC-9 and DC-10 is now part of Boeing. If you've ever flown in one of these Super 80s, I think you'd agree with me: they are the most passenger-unfriendly uncomfortable contraptions designed for modern travel. In particular, some design engineer obviously decided that the best place to locate the jets of this narrow, single-aisle craft, is right at window-level at approximately the last 3 rows of seats. In other words, if you sit in the back, you're going to vibrate (not in a good way) and not be able to look out the window. I know...I once had a middle seat back there for a flight from LAX to O'Hare....that was pretty much the last straw.

So, using miles on AA for x-mas, only First Class was available for the premium price of 45,000 miles. Seemed like a good idea to me, so that's what I booked. Of course, I must have suffered some sort of momentary brain cramp when I booked it, because I thought I booked the flight leaving at 8 p.m. Fortunately, within minutes of finalizing the reservation, I saw that I actually booked the flight arriving in Vegas at 8 p.m. Okay...no big deal...no one was really working in the afternoon before x-mas in the office anyway. That meant the departure time was actually scheduled around 5:30 p.m.

The really interesting question for me for this trip, then, was how best to get to O'Hare? For trips of this brief a duration, I'll often drive and park in the close-in lot because it's pretty close to a wash with the price of a round-trip cab ride. However, with it being x-mas, my guess was that parking was going to be minimal or difficult at best. So I thought, OK, I'll take a cab to the office and then the eL to O'Hare after work.

Now, if you remember the national weather picture leading up to x-mas this year, you'll recall a nasty bizzard that hit Denver and messed up travel across the country on Thursday. On Friday, in Chicago, the remnants of that storm dumped rain and fog on O'Hare, delaying everything.... now, here comes my next little mini-rant: the lies of the airlines, aka the "creep".

Most of the day on Friday, AA's website claimed, despite the delays rocking O'Hare, despite the reports on the news in the morning that there were up to 2 hour delays at O'Hare, that my flight would be on time. Yeah right. As mid-afternoon came around, AA conceded, that the flight would be delayed 25 min. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, of course. But, since you never know for sure, at 4 p.m. it was time to head over to O'Hare by eL for a now-scheduled 6 p.m. flight. Taking the eL to O'Hare is a whole other slow adventure, but it still looked faster than traffic (so go figure).

Upon arrival at AA's Terminal 3, the "board" still showed only the 25 min. delay. After clearing TSA Security, though, the board now said 6:30. See...there's the creep. They keep changing the time in 20-30 min. spurts so you don't think of it as a 2 hour delay or whatever. Over at the gate, there are lots of folks who have been at O'Hare since 4 a.m. (or so they said) and making connections to other places. At least, I just came from my office. Creep, creep, creep....the flight finally boarded and departed around 8 p.m. which, of course, is when I originally when I thought I was leaving oddly enough.

The rental car counter was pretty quick, as was the bus to the car....the drive over to Luxor was rather uneventful until it was time to find parking in their self-park (in other words, I should have used the valet).

This story will continue next time I log in... today's flight actually seems to be on-time (but that's another story).

(edited 12-30-2006 and an Addendum added 1-17-2007 below)

Addendum:

Sorry, never continued the story. A few notes:

Low floors in the Luxor Pyramid are way too close to the Casino floor and have no view. you don't even get to ride an "inclinator" -- I was assigned a "glass back" elevator which really had no view either.

A further comment on: The Price Is Right: Live on Stage with the former TV host of Whammy! and Randy West (sometime announcer for Supermarket Sweep). At $40+ (with tax), a decent show where the biggest prize a member of the audience won was a cruise to Mexico (or maybe the fridge was worth more?). They used the classic games, including Plinko, and it was fun and probably less expensive than sitting at a blackjack table for a couple of hours.

I never know when my next trip to Vegas will be.... I usually go at x-mas, but we'll see if I find another chance before then. Indeed, we'll see....

Last night was the Battle-Prov "event" called "The Glut." It was pretty much a free-for-all/open-improv-mic "show" at The Spot followed by the "holiday party." I debated on and off about whether I would show up...but, ultimately I did. I "tried" to arrive a bit later than the usual "6:30 p.m. call" time, but still showed up on time and, indeed, first (save for our host Matt Elwell). Eventually folks started to arrive ... even another teammate from DragonFly! Games were basically, "first six on stage for...." variety. I played 4-corners with the suggestions of Elf-Astronaut and siblings (with me layering on formerly conjoined and the my scene partner having had an operation). I also played conducted story (my favorite performance game) and lasted until pretty close to the end when I was accused of repeating the "Hay" sound in "Haiti" (which I probably did). Some of the performers were not CSz regulars, there was a bit of swearing (very much not a CSz thing), and even Matt acknowledged at the start that the show would be "a bit off-rail." The show ended with one of the longest exhibitions of "freeze" I have ever seen...I chose not to play...and then some snacks arrived for the party (along with another DragonFly teammate). And that was it.

Rather uneventful...but worth this minor blog entry(?).

DragonFly has no more performances scheduled this year and, in fact, we don't yet have the Jan./Feb. schedule, so I don't know when my improv-on-point blog entry may be.

Do not fear, dear reader... in coming days/weeks, you'll probably see some entries on such things as Cirque Du Soliel's latest Las Vegas show "Love" (featuring the music of the Beetles), Wayne Newton, other shows and travel ramblings.

Of course, January 5, 12, 19, 26 and February 2, 2007, at Donny's Skybox Theatre, Piper's Alley, Fourth Floor (North & Wells St., Chicago, Illinois) at 9 p.m., a talented cast will be performing ABANDON RELATIONSHIP, the show I co-wrote with my Second City Training Center Writing Program classmates concluding our Level 5 class. Don't miss it!

That will do it for this blog. Portions recorded. I'll see ya when I see ya. And, if not, happy new year anyway.