Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough

Whoa, that last post was my 1500th entry in Bella Rossa! I had no idea. And I have hardly blogged at all in the last ten days. That has never happened. Okay, so I'm still super busy. What's going on? Well, apparently I'm becoming a filmmaker, for one thing. Lots of exciting news. Will catch up soon.

But first, a cheer for some of my comedy homies and valued friends:

Returning friends I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with last night at the Lodge. Comedy best friends. People who invite me over for a comedians' Thanksgiving. Comedian friends who are so wowed by my editing work that it makes me take myself seriously as a filmmaker.

My adored niece and creative partner in crime, soon to be my roommate. (Our home is going to become a hangout and focal point of Chicago comedy and creativity, wait 'till you see!)

My office friends (sorry, no links), and people like the very sweet Bridget Fitzgerald, who keep popping up to see me onstage, even when I'm head-to-toe red blotches and talking so fast I finish my jokes two minutes early.

My new friends, who are soon to figure heavily in my creative development and production (get lots of sleep, Nellie!).

My co-producer Dan, currently swimming in a river of creative, marital, and reproductive bliss with his beautiful wife Victoria.

And cheers for smokin' hot, crazy smart, very funny boys (okay, "boy") who have let me grab and fondle them in private moments and in public as well. Oh, you didn't go to ChUC last Tuesday? Then you don't know what I'm talking about. That's okay. He knows who he is.

And, apropos of absolutely nothing, here's a 40 second video of a slow-moving train gliding through a market in Bangkok, and then the shopkeepers flipping down awnings and pushing out cars of wares seconds after the train has passed. It's so beautiful it looks choreographed.

"Beefsoy" by Elizabeth McQuern - Second City Chicago

Not blogging. Very busy. I'm catching up on some editing. Watch this. It's my sketch at Second City. It's about seven minutes long. Got a few good laughs from the crowd. Our actors were great.

Not Kidding Around Anymore

I don't know what's gotten into me all of the sudden -- fruitful conversations with new friends? Tackling terrifying new challenges and walking away unscathed (see theater-related posts here and here)? Inspired by the example of other brave friends? -- but I'm in this very "I can do anything and I'm going to go for what I want, and if the first try doesn't work, then next one will" mode.

So here I come, get out of my way.

I was banging my head all day yesterday...and last night...and this morning, teaching myself all the stuff I needed to know in order to produce the film of Prescott's Improv set. Lots of phone calls to Canon technical support. Lots of phone calls to Apple tech support. Lots of being caught in the Nerd's Bermuda Triangle of Radio Shack, Best Buy, and coffee places. Lots of trial and lots of errors, but I figured out everything I needed to know.

The final cut of Prescott's set is too long to post online at the moment but here's a sample clip I put together, because in the middle of all of this technical dickery I realized I could and should be doing this sort of thing for other people as well. Want a nicely shot and edited clip of yourself doing a killer set? I can probably help you out there.

And this clip is just the first try at this sort of thing. I'd never used the tripod before, and I know I'll get smoother with it, and get snappier with the editing, and learn to get better sound, and write better music, too.

I repeat: here I come, get out of my way.

(Oh, and check it: "Bella Rossa Productions.")

Insomnia Part Two

Screw it. I still can't sleep. I'm going to the gym now. At 5:59 in the morning.

Insomnia? Who, Me?

Goals for the next two and a half years:
(You know I mean it because I rarely use large font.)

Be a victim of Stendhal Syndrome. Expose myself to beauty, either through art or nature, that utterly overwhelms me.




More travel. Even if it's not far away, I want more frequent getaways, even for just brief weekends. And one big trip -- a swing through Europe. Lots of family and friends in various places there. This is entirely a reachable goal.

Clear away all debt. I have some professional traction and I'm making decent money now and this is totally feasible.


Grow my hair long again. I miss having a long swishy girly ponytail.

At least one big athletic challenge. I've done a few triathlons but never been much of a runner. Maybe a mega bike race or a longer triathlon where I accept that fact that I'll have to walk most of the run. Maybe I'll join a swim team (this time without burning myself out like I did as a kid). But I need to prove something to myself and I need a major physical challenge.



Take the comedy and creativity to the next level. Publish a book. Keep trying new things with comedy and writing. This week alone I made my stage debut and declared myself the mastermind behind Bella Rossa Productions (thanks, Hud), which produced its first "real" film project. Make some short films. Take a bigger leap with comedy and push myself into more new areas.



Move. I've been in Chicago for 2 1/2 years. Getting here was a big leap. I've made a lot of personal, professional, and creative progress, and I'm already getting itchy for a new challenge. The brainy part of my is drawn toward New York, where my brother may well be moving in the near future as well, although when this topic comes up in my dreams it's always about Los Angeles. I have friends in both places. We shall see. But the time will come.

As my friend Nellie Ann (by way of another friend) recently observed, "When you set your foot upon a path that is going to accelerate your growth, things align around you and happen very quickly." I'm on the right path. Things are snowballing. I'm moving ahead. Want to come with me?

Technological Difficulties, Lack of Proper Social Stimulation

If someone could explain to me why it takes a full hour for iMovie to put a letterbox I didn't specify around recently imported Canon HD footage, I would be ever so grateful.

And if anyone could advise me on why Gmail is not allowing me to add to the Chicago Underground Comedy e-mail list in any of the six thousand different ways I'm trying to do that, that would be swell.

Also, if any of my readers could help me find the 15 minutes of Prescott's footage for his Comedy Central thing that apparently turned to digital dust on my hard drive, never to be seen again, that would go a long way toward preventing me from hurling myself out the window right now.

I'm really stressed right now. I need a hug. Oh, wait, what?

"ERROR MESSAGE 987243: The hug so desperately needed by your oxytocin-deficient brain cannot be located on this machine. Please proceed to the nearest likely place to find a partner suitable for engaging in hugging and other oxytocin-boosting activities, including kissing, fondling, and sex."

Thanks a lot. Now I have to get drunk and to go Berlin.

Braindead and Very Happy...Must Sleep Now Or Die

Sidenote: as I type this, the couple in the apartment next to me, who might think they are being discreet, are clearly going at it. Move the bed away from the wall, please, because my bed is also against that wall, and you're kind of banging me with your vibrations right now. And please cram a pillow stuffed with a higher grade of feather in your mouth, because I can still hear your muffled moans.

Friday night I saw Maria Bamford at the Lakeshore Theater. She was gracious enough to grant me yet another interview last week and this was the first time I'd seen her in person. She was glorious. Nutty and adorable and so creative that it's making me rethink my stand-up. I've felt very stagnant lately, dodging every opportunity to take the stage, and very unsatisfied with what are, by any measure, successful sets. I don't really know what that's about but I really need for that to change.

Last night Prescott took me to the Chicago Improv to film his set so he can submit to get a Comedy Central half hour special. Watching someone as skilled and talented as he is do two thirty minute sets back to back was very instructional. I love tagging along with talent and being ushered into all the secret nooks and crannies and backstage areas. It makes me feel so much cooler than I actually am. Of course I picked Prescott's brain about all things comedy and comedy bidness in the car all the way there and back. As soon as Canon's customer service center opens at 8 tomorrow morning, I'm going to figure out how to download his set from the camcorder to my MacBook and edit it on iMovie. This will be the first time I'll be editing something important that I shot with a good camera and I'm excited to see what I can do with it. This could be the beginning of many good video-related things that have been burbling in my brain.

Then I went to the after-party for the Pat Brice tribute show at the Lakeshore, which was sold out. The first thing I saw was Pat's Mom and Dad walking out of the show, with big smiles on their faces, which made me very happy. There were beer bottles and Blerds all over the stage and I hopped up there with my girls K-Rock and K-Roll to join the fray. The show was incredible, by all accounts, and everyone was in high spirits. TJ, Jordan, and Kyle had flown in from LA. I ragged on Jordan for "going LA," and he made a crack about me finally becoming a comedian, which is funny, because during a very thought-provoking conversation with Lincoln Lodge producer Mark Geary, when he requested my headshot for his website, I reinforced my denial about being a comedian. I don't even have a headshot on my own show's website, and I still am not entirely convinced that I am a real comedian. Before long the party moved to Wilde's, where I kept my promise to myself to schmooze and connect and gather useful data only to a reasonable hour, because...

This afternoon I made my (understudy) acting debut at the Live Bait Theater in "Writing With Nancy." Fifteen minutes before showtime, was utterly convinced that I was going to blank out, throw up, or run out of the theater crying. I was trembling and almost sick with anxiety. Instead, I improvised lines that got big laughs, shook my ta-ta's with a brazen zeal that surely has my Amish forebears spinning in their graves, and belted out some brassy solos. (How is it that someone as square and squeamish as I am had so much fun making multiple onstage references to my own knockers? Comedy is reshaping me into a frisky little kitten.) I muffed a few lines but was supported by the ample and kind talents of Nancy, as well as superstars Ashley Vinson and Gillian Bellinger.

Top that off with drinks and dinner at Uncommon Ground with yet another new "I can't believe how much we have in common" comedy comrade, the show's tech girl Nellie Ann (we talked about all things comedy, writing, and nerdery for several intense hours), and you have a pretty darned good weekend.

...aaaaand I guess the couple next door have concluded their joyous romp through the Elysian fields of carnal pleasure, because a deep male voice just cried out with the agony and the ecstasy and then fell silent. Either I'm a nimble typist or he's possessed of a remarkable stamina, but either way -- "ew," and "shut up."

It's Coming...Are You Ready?

Okay, I don't know quite how to explain this video, which is unlike anything I've done before. It's based on some dreams I've had recently (I know, my dreams...) about airplanes and time travel. Yes, I'm a sci-fi nerd and kind of a weirdo. I'm also an airline kid (my dad and several other family members were pilots) and I'm under a lot of stress, and flight patterns have always flickered through my subconscious at night. I also realized a few weeks ago that flights from the north and south take a westerly turn across the lake right by my neighborhood all night, and there's a blinking white highway of incoming airplanes over my building all night long. (You can see airplanes soaring over buildings at the end of the video...I know, I have a crappy camera.)

A strange poem and some music were flitting around my head last night as I tried to sleep. It seems like no matter how busy my brain is during the day, and how hard I try to stomp down reflective thoughts about The Big Picture and What Life's All About, they are running through the universe that is my mind all night, with a groovy little music soundtrack. Anyway, it's less than two minutes long, so if you're already here, give it a look and lemme know what you think.

Surprisingly Clam

"Actress Amanda Holden was shaken last night after discovering a dead body while on a morning jog. Miss Holden said she felt surprisingly clam when she found the body."

I should say so. I'm always surprised to find myself feeling clam. I feel even more surprised when I find myself feeling more than one. They're an unappealing combination of rough and bumpy, and slick and slimy.

The Giant Monolithic Crouton of Doom

There I was, making my obsessive compulsive "identical for the two hundred and sixth day" salad. Wait. No. Who am I kidding? I've been eating this exact salad, with slight variations, for five or six years. My defense is that it's the kind of food I switched to when I decided to stop eating entire one pound bags of M&M's in an obsessive, color-pairing fashion. At least I'm making healthier choices with my neurologically glitchy behavior. Anyway...

First, a fistful of spinach. Full of iron.










Then a healthy sprinkling of broccoli, cabbage, and carrots (they keep one's hair nice and orangey-colored).









Then a glob of fattily delicious real bleu cheese dressing (I don't skimp and use crappy store brand lowfat slimey ranch. There's got to be some pleasure involved in this ordeal).








One shiny red apple, buffed to perfection.










Choppy choppy.










Addy addy.










Then, a few croutons -- whoa! What is this?










The giant monolithic crouton of doom. I'm scared*!

Someone at the crouton factory needs to review their quality inspection procedures.

*No, seriously, I'm scared. I can't eat this crouton. It's in a plastic baggie on a shelf above my sink. I have no idea what to do with it.

It's So Obvious

Dan and other aspiring writer friends and I are getting more wound up about the WGA strike.

How can the moguls and producers get so happy about the certainty of current and future profits from online content (and surely crow to their stockholders to this effect) and yet plead that the impact of internet content is still uncertain?

Disney's honcho says $1.5 billion of its annual revenue comes from digital. Sumner Redstone says "Viacom will double its revenues this year from digital." Rupert Murdoch refers to the digital revolution as an era of "golden opportunities."

But when the writers say "Hey, can we please have our fair share, as well?" They're all "but the impact of new media is uncertain."

Come on.

Wisconsin Weekend

I am such a hopeless Macmonkey. Sloan and other family and I crashed at our friends Tim and Sally's awesome farmhouse in Wisconsin over the weekend. They're honeymooning in Japan at the moment. I've been home for ten minutes and I'm already uploading a two minute video to YouTube.

I don't have a real video camera so I just used the camera on my MacBook, very carefully walking it around the house and barns. I'm such a dork that I wrote the music for this and edited it on the way home in the car.

It's not perfect. Some of the titles overlap and I put the soft focus filter on after the titles, so they're fuzzy and too light in places, but I don't feel like taking four hours to re-edit. And I wish I had a bridge in the song but I still like it. I could write music for hours.

Winter's On Its Way

The cats are all over me all night. I keep the window cracked at night because I love the cold, and the girls (see Calpurnia at left, on my boobs despite me trying to nudge her off with my MacBook), are crazy with the snuggling. It'd like to think it's love, but I know it's mostly body temperature maintenance.

My asthma is exercise-induced and triggered by cold dry air, so my exhilarating, sometimes reckless bike runs through dark Chicago streets are punctuated with wracking coughs. But biking gives me that adrenaline rush I cannot live without, so I'm getting out as much as I can.

I'm tough but I'm delicate. My skin sensitivities are in full swing. My sun allergy is less of an issue, but hot showers make me break out in what look like second degree burns. I've even started getting waxed to spare myself ten more minutes shaving in the shower every day.

I moisturize all day long. Every night before bed I slather myself one last time in yummy-smelling lotion and slip into the softest jammies and bedsheets known to humankind. What can I say? I'm a tomboy but I'm still a girl. This time of year, I'm all about being touched by soft things. Give me a cashmere sweater and flannel sheets and I'll be your best friend forever.

Yin and Yang: The Bad News, the Good News

Uncool: 4.2 million toys coated in a chemical that, should a child do something childlike, like put one in their mouth, "converts into the toxic 'date rape' drug GHB," have been recalled.

Cool: A teenage boy in Australia jumped on the tracks and saved a stranger from being hit by a train.

Uncool: Both the iPhone and iPod earphones contain harmful chemicals in such concentrations that they violate California state law.

Cool: NASA recently published recordings made from Cassini's jaunt around the solar system, described as "eerie whistling, epic whooshing and warbling echoes." Here's what it sounds like near Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons.

Uncool: Our National Security Agency has pretty much copied the entire internet and all e-mails as well.

Cool: If you buy $3150 worth of pudding, you can fly free to Europe 31 times.

Winner of the Bad Music Contest - NO ONE

Well, thanks for listening and voting, everyone. But it seems that between the 4 to 4 votes and the swing votes going "undecided," we have no true winner in the First Official Sloan and Elizabeth Bad Music Contest. Here's the final tally:

Votes for "Cheese Purse of Freedom" -
1 Nick
2 Shan
3 Anonymous
4 Keef

Votes for "The Gerbil Klaxon Terrible Music Project" -
1 Anonymous
2 Luis
3 Dan Telfer
4 Mercy

Undecided weenie butts -
1 KDuck
2 Grant Miller
3 Chancelucky

But fear not! The creation of terrible, horrible art will not end here. Because of your indecision, Sloan and I have decided to enter round two of this tragic competition, and either 1. Remix each other's crappy songs, or 2. Make videos for each other's crappy songs. Stay tuned.

Baby gerbil photo from Cute Overload.

Oh, No, Sprint Di'Int!

In the last two days I've spent six and a half hours on the telephone trying to get set up to use my new Blackberry with my new service provider, Sprint. Transferred from one person to another, one department to another, one heavily-accented nation to another.

Six and a half hours I could have spent working on urgent projects and earning some dough.

And I still don't have e-mail on my phone. You'd better make this up to me, Sprint.

I am cranky.

VOTE On The Sloan and Elizabeth Bad Music Contest

I brought my MacBook to my niece Sloan's (that's her at left) and we decided to have a contest to see who could use Garage Band to write the most horrible 60 second song in less than 30 minutes. For some continuity, both pieces have two elements in common: her saying "gerbil" and me saying "I don't want be in here." We ran off to separate rooms and got to work. Here's the horrible crap we came up with.

If you vote (in the comments section of this post), you also get to suggest what prize the winner gets. Apparently writing crappy music exhausted our creative reserves, because we can't think of an appropriate prize.

"The Cheese Purse of Freedom," by Sloan Taylor (1 minute, 16 seconds).

Special bonus points for use of phone jingle noise, "boi-oi-oing" noise, and for somehow conjuring up the ghost of 1986-era Don Johnson, even though Don Johnson's not actually dead yet.

"The Gerbil Klaxon Terrible Music Project," by Elizabeth McQuern (50 seconds).

Special bonus points for use of jingle bells, a klaxon, and the horns that show up in my ChUC theme song and everything else I write.

Another ChUC Podcast: Nerd Passion Becomes Rage

From Tuesday night. This is also up on Vocalo, and I spent enough time editing out all the f*bombs that it should be eligible for radio play.

"Post-comedy show chatter is a always a mishmash, but at Chicago Underground Comedy, there are always a lot of passionate nerdy discussions. In this segment: "Lost" theories -- the little-explored "WWII doom scientists" backstory, the "accelerated psychic abilities" theory, who cares who kisses Kate? Jared Logan, Ricky Carmona, and Elizabeth McQuern love Star Trek, but Dan Telfer thinks the hot Borg chick is called "7, 8, 9," and can't get into things his parents were nerds about -- but was still scared by Dr. Who "garbage bags with lizard masks." Jared thinks Star Trek beats Star Wars by a mile. All agree that the final three Star Wars movies ruined the first three. Jared describes George Lucas as a "P.T. Barnum, Henry Ford, anti-semitic piece of crap." And no, the recording isn't skipping, there were lots of f*bombs that needed to be edited out. These are comedians, people."
(6 minutes, 43 seconds - click here to listen.)