Hey Crowd,
Remember when your good Ole Great Unc'a Bill would blog all the time. Why I'd go on for hours and write about things that only a maniac would want to hear...and you read it, to your credit.
Besides the fact that that rhymed, or despite that fact I'd ramble on about treasure hunts and network auditions and bands I heard and my favorite fans. And then things got quiet...a little too quiet. The divorce happened...and I stopped blogging regularly. That was probably scary for you and maybe you even blamed yourself or felt that it was your fault.
Well, it probably was. But I wouldn't hold that against you because things are better now. So here I am in LA on a slightly chilly night. During the days the weather has been beautiful. Like the sort of weather they have where angels guard secret giants. Or the kinda day when a surfer dude decides not to "hang ten" and sits under the shade of a cocanut tree and "pots off" or whatever it is that druggers do.
I've had some mad fun since coming back to town, including shooting two more episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place and a webisode of Donny Clay starring Jason Alexander. I've got classes going on in LA and The Improv Trick is going strong in St. Louis while I'm in LA where we all agree I need to be.
Well, one of the fun things I've done is go to Yoshimoto Nara exhibit at the Blum and Poe gallery. Like much of Japanese art, it's all about young girls. I decided I should have my picture taken in front of a really cool looking circus wagon. The second such picture I've found recently.
The other such picture is from long ago when I was writing for Jeff Fox's Barracuda Magazine under the name Diamond Bill Cardigan, a trickster and medicine show man and living encyclopedia of sucker bets.
In the meantime, my good friend Eric Hoffman has found a number of old pics from my days with the sketch comedy troupe The Dickie Bell Twist Dance Party and put them on Facebook. You can find them there, but here's an example of the insipred lunacy.
This was a really fun show that we did in the early days of iO West. Very bizarre sketches from another dimension with a cool Retro feel. Before Retro was cool and when it was still just Post Junk.
I just got back from New Orleans for the New Orleans Comedy Arts Festival. It was a lot of fun. I had never been there for a Mardi Gras parade. It was so neat. There was a float that featured Uncle Sam, bent over a barrell and a prom queen named Fannie Mae having her way with the kind uncle. I had a great time and I think this picture sums it all up.
Yes, by the end of the evening I was, as the British put it, "Fagged Out." I really enjoyed seeing some of my favorite funny people including the wonderful Yvonne Landry owner and director of the La Nuit Comedy Theater. It was good to see all the acts, and in particular I enjoyed hanging with Jill Bernard, who had me do a cameo on her audio blog about The Lockhorns.
You can hear it here:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://lockhornsaloud.livejournal.com%2F82358.html
This was her Mardi Gras costume...a pirate hat.
I really enjoyed watching the Oscars the other night. I had my greedy little working actor fingers crossed and I'm glad that my favorite pinko commie homosexual Sean Penn won for Best Actor.
Although I have to say that I was also rooting for Mickey Rourke. I really identified with his role in The Wrestler and the portion of his life where he felt that he couldn't go on doing the only thing he loved and decided to work as a butcher, until he snapped.
He had fun until he was recognized. That's kinda how I felt about moving back to St. Louis until The Improv Trick became this amazing thing in my life and I was reborn. I felt like I was denying myself the thing I loved in life, and until our improv comminty came together there, I was lost. Very much like Randy the Ram.
I also really enjoyed Benjamin Button. Both that movie and the Wrestler were about coming back from your adversities even stronger. Just like Me and New Orleans. It was great to see so many familiar sites in that film. Places I've seen on my many trips to the beautiful Crecent City.
I look at New Orleans making it's way back and I see myself, I see Benjamin Button, I see Randy the Ram. I see America.