America Part 2
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.