Let’s have a mind and raise flowers.

People keep telling me: “I wouldn’t eat that. That’s Franken-food.”  I had originally thought that meant Jewish food.
And while it turns out that ‘Franken-food’ is a brand of Matzoh ball soup distributed out of Akron Ohio, (its really good and is available in low sodium too) it also means food that’s been genetically modified.

“That’s got chemicals in it!” I heard someone say to me in a screaming motherly voice (it was my mother screaming at me) while I was in line at Popeye’s buying a tub of chicken things.

“Well,” says I, “Chemicals were the primordial soup that gave birth to life on Earth. If they’re good enough to spontaneously create life in a warm ocean, they’re good enough for me to pound into my wide, gaping, love-starved, snack hole.”

By the way: Do you think comparing my lunch to Frankenstein’s Monster will keep me away?  Have you ever seen the movie Frankenstein? That undead Monster is frickin’ awesome!  He’s a tall, darkly handsome, charismatic, and memorable figure. 
He’s like Barack Obama, for Chrissakes!
(For the record, I’m voting for Hilary because I’m chivalrous.)

I think that Frankenstein’s Monster has got a bad rap. 
He can’t help it that he dislikes fire.
I dislike fire. Are you gonna hate me for that?  Not only do I hate fire, I hate it when campfire smoke makes my hair stink for days after my camping trip.  Are you gonna chase me into a windmill with pitchforks because of it? You probably would. Fascist.

I remember when they cloned Dolly the sheep and everybody was all up in arms about it.  And then when I broke into the lab and bestiality-ed Dolly to death everybody got all up on their high horses.  You just can’t have your cake and eat it too, world!

I’m no genius, and I don’t know much about genetics, but I do know that mine gave me a predisposition for gambling and warts. So all you ‘organic and natural’ hippies can help yourselves to your ‘mulch pile grown celery’ and your ‘MSG free tofu beef jerky’ all you want.  Just leave me and my glowing, throbbing third arm alone.

Ryan McGivern

www.organicmall.com

In improvisational theatre, everything that you will need to ever know will ultimately
boil down to ‘yes and’. Yes/And is shorthand for the most basic ‘rules’ of playing with others in improv, and as simplistic and pure as it is as a rule can make it seem easy to accomplish on stage. Not so. Its tough.

Yes/Anding your way to victory is tough because it asks of you to actively really listen to what is going on around you. It also asks that you let go of control, agenda, and everything else. Its like when Jesus said: “love people and stuff.” Easier said than done. Just ask any asshole Christian.

I want to talk about one way that Yes/And can be misunderstood. I often myself slip into this and I have seen it in other players as well. It gets translated into “Restatement”.
Restatement, even with a fun or unexpected twist is still missing the heart of Yes/And.

Example of Restatement: (let’s look at the first lines of a scene)
“God the workload around here is skyrocketing!”
“We’re being worked harder than Queen Latifah’s scale!”

Okay, so that is also an example of a ‘joke’ which shouldn’t be done either. But, it serves to show that simple restating as a form of Yes is weak. Think of ‘Yes’ as ‘just don’t negate that’. Its a reality and as such should be respected. Thinking as ‘just don’t deny or negate that’ also will encourage you to create lots of statements about the reality too.
And that brings us to the ‘And’. ‘And’ will give more information about you, the environment, your relationship, the other (as a ‘give’), etc.

Let’s go back to our example:
“God, the workload around here is skyrocketing!”
“(mimes grabbing a turkey, cutting off its head) Thanksgiving is always the busiest time of year, Steve.”

This accomplishes more in a short period of time. Now you’ve got a location, (turkey slaughter house), a name for your partner, and a time of year (audiences will appreciate if you have scenes about current real time issues).

It’s hard to accept a reality, not negate it, and then take it to another level by adding to the shared story. That is why I wholeheartedly suggest you nurture the 3 second rule: Take your time. Listen, and don’t respond so fast. In your mind, during these 3 seconds, think about Yes/And.

More on Improv to come…
Ryan McGivern

Last June…..
W: Please, Crumpet-don’t leave me.
Tony Blair: I’m sorry, luv. But as Diana used to say, “get out whilst yer ahead.”
W: Oh my gawd I need you….pleez don’t say this. pleez…
Tony Blair: Its over. Its like the first season of the BBC’s “The Office”, only there won’t be a second season for us. Cheers. [hangs up]

This past week…..
W: Croissant, I need to see you.
Nicolas Sarkozy: Shit, man-what time is it?
W: What’re ya wearing?…….Croissant. What’re wearing?
Nicolas Sarkozy: Wha?
W: C’mon. You know…..youknowwhatIwant….Doncha? Mmmmm.
Nicolas Sarkozy: Seriously, dude there’s a time difference, you know. It’s like
four in the morning here. Have you been drinking?
W: ….Guilty.
Nicolas Sarkozy: What am I going to do with you? Ohmygod.
W: Listen. Listen. Listen. Iran. You know Iran?
Nicolas Sarkozy: Yeah. I know Iran.
W: Let’s uh…..God, you know what I want, baby.
Nicolas Sarkozy: Maybe….
W: Say it…..you know what daddy wants…….C’mon.
Nicolas Sarkozy: [Sighs] I promised I wouldn’t do this…But, okay.
W: Yehhhhhhhh. I’ll be over in 10 minutes.
Nicolas Sarkozy: Don’t you drive over here!
W: I’m not. I’ll call a cab. I’m cool to drive anyway. But, shit. Whatever.
Nicolas Sarkozy: The key’s in the usual place.
W: You’re the best, baby.
Click

Ryan McGivern

Dear Standard Time,

I know you like to act all like you are the “real” or “foundational” time – as if there is anything “real” about “time” – but I just wanted you to know how much you make me want to die. Sure, there have been a lot of things that I actually like that make me want to die, but I liked them. You are in no way worth it. So now I have about 5 months of putting up with you and your world-hating self where I have to force myself to do groceries and swim and care about anything at all.

This letter is a few days late, but I was drunk for the first one and hung over for the second, so that now it is the third day since you’ve shown up this half of the year and I barely want to move. And perhaps the only good thing Bush has ever done in his entire life is to shorten your yearly existence.

Love, Lori

P.S. – Any idea as to why I woke up with a swollen ankle the first day after your activation? I was blaming it on other things, like the drunken sex I was having with a stranger, but he was only choking me, there was no ankle play involved at all – I am convinced that it was all because of you!

Henry VIII’s Wives, an Art Collective from Glasgow, recreated famous historical photographs utilizing residents of an elderly home as models and the neighborhood around the home as background. The series is entitled “Iconic Moments of the Twentieth Century”. Henry VIII’s Wives‘ website tells:

A group of aged volunteers pose in their everyday outfits and in their daily environment (the vicinity of the Home) to re-enact the scenes from well-known newspaper photographs taken from history books and encyclopaedias. The images in question depict ‘historical moments’ that took place in their lifetime: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference during the World War II, the Napalm Attack and the killing a Vietcong from the Vietnam War, or the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, which was depicted live on a TV programme. Each of these images represents an immediately recognisable cultural leitmotif of its époque, the representation that overshadows the event it documents.

Link (via Laughing Squid and Boing Boing)

There are few joys in my life, and watching movie trailers is one of them. Reese Witherspoon, listen to me: don’t take this simple pleasure from me. I had the unfortunate displeasure to watch the movie trailer for “Rendition” this morning while checking out apple.com/trailers and I almost wished that I had never got out of bed.

The movie trailer has the feel that it was written by a community college student who is taking their first Politics and Society class and wants to tell everybody how awful America is.

“America sends people over seas to be tortured! Did you know that!?”
“Yeah. Actually, I told you about it three years ago. Its called rendition.”
“I know! America does that. Whatcha call it?”
“Rendition.”
“…We’re at war with Iraq because of oil! Did you know that?”

Its one thing to have a preachy movie. Its another to have a self righteous movie telling you exactly what you already know-like “All Dogs Go To Heaven”.

Now aside from the movie being a steaming pile of “Let’s Get Outraged About Something At The Movie Theatre And Then Go Have Dinner At Olive Garden”, you’ve also got to hand it to Reese Witherspoon to raise the bar of Unwatchability so thoroughly.

Obviously, Meryl Streep didn’t have time to sit the young actress down and give her the first rule of good acting. “Whisper everything.”

I want to be fair. I don’t think that any A list actress, not even Anne Hathaway herself could deliver with any dignity the line: “Just tell me he’s okay!!!!!!”

I can’t wait until the sequel “Sleeper Cell” starring Reese Witherspoon and tackling the difficult and politically charged topic of stem cell research comes out. Reese Witherspoon’s Handsome Arab Husband will get Parkinson’s and Meryl Streep, reprising her role as an asshole Neo-Con, will deny him the ability to use undifferentiated embryonic cells to do research on. It will get me so outraged!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/rendition/medium.html

Ryan McGivern