HeadSpill

Since I came back from the US I have work coming out my ears. Some good, and some utter bobbins-but-needs-doing-to-pay-the-bills. Gigs are slowly picking up as the new season approaches, and there’s been plently of freelance stuff on, but some things still need doing, like the small matter of looking for a flat with my partner of seven months, she’s in Edinburgh at the moment and I’m not. Not that I’m jealous or anything, I’m not (Grrrrrr). When she returns we begin the hard veiwing and staring and looking process. Having done one viewing myslef recently just to familiarise myself with the process, i now have my bull**** meter turned up to eleven to dismiss anything and everthing I hear from anyone from a lettings agency. If and when I, er, we, find somewhere we like, I reserve the right to fiddle with taps, poke things down radiators, sniff paint and afterwards drive to the property at night to measure the distance to the nearest shop selling fresh bread and monitor how long it take for two kids to drive past that constiutes ‘gang activity’ until I am wholely satisfyed that the new abode is a silent but accessable stealth castle, in which the feng shui will prevent all arguements from ever happening, and there is a wall big enough to for me to hook up my projector to my HD laptop with the Geforce 8600gt inside it and play Oblivion with the widescreen settings on, 8ft wide, like it’s on at the IMAX down the town. Such a place exists, I just need to find it.

I’m back now, so all this is in the past tense.

If the first week was about travelling and seeing shiney new things and places, then the second was more localised. Rock Island, Illinios is a quiet place, the Holiday Inn was serviceable and the big ice machine was fun to use. Over the course of the Comedysportz tournament the most interesting aspect I found was how the teams played out depending on their background and were they from. The Rock Island home team were very rough and ready, whereas the Los Angeles team were incredibly slick and just oozed performance from every pour. Some were actors who did improv, some where stand ups who did improv, and some were purebred improvisers.
Getting to know of one of the LA team, a chap called Rick, I got a tad upset. He had not just the apperance, but the manner and charisma one of those ‘beautiful people’ you see on telly all the time. Ir was lik everywhere he went he knew exactly how to see the light, and made every environment he stood in look like a set from a commercial. On speaking to him I fully expected to be intimidated by talk of castings (one of the ref’s was in a pepsi commercial while the tourney was on,) and the whiff of ego, but got niether. He was a humble friendly chap. How annoying.
We won our match against Chapel Hill, not hard considering there was 2 of them and 8 of us. We even gave them two of our players for the match.
Four days of wall to wall comedysportz was a blast, and very intense, but about the right length. Highlights include meeting a bloke call Ed Trout, who reminded me of a cross between my old mate Dave and Frank Zappa. He had really good posture. Also standing next to the toilet in ‘Momma Comptons’ restaurant at 3 in the morning quoting references from the character ‘box’ in Logans run to Luke from Portland while eating superman flavour ice cream.

We did and English stand up gig on the last friday was beautiful. A room full of expectant locals and the CSZ teams all watching English guys being funny, and they loved it as much as we did.
The picture here is on the toilet door of momma comptons. Does it look innapropriate to you?

At the end of the week I was becoming a bit tired of the over and innaropriate use of the word ‘awesome’. And I found out I’m a bit shit at volleyball, after that I was ready to go home.