SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a monday

Season Two is done. Fun was had, Lisa P came in and nailed the part of the former Mrs. Aquarius, and Brian Thacker was crowned the new SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE champion. Once again, the majority of the thanks go out to JMatt. The poor guy spent another six weeks making things run while the rest of us dicked around.

Honestly, if you haven't been coming to the show, you're missing out. Food for thought when I bring back the big pink banner after the summer and start sending you facebook invites to Season Three.

how do you avoid getting on a roll?

I'm making a sincere effort to leave well enough alone. This evening, I got a text message from Scott. He had an idea. An idea so perfect and obvious that I kind of hated myself for not coming up with it. We bounced a few idea back and forth and got ourselves to work. The result is big, dumb fun on the internet that you might want to take a peek at come tomorrow.

So I've officially made my contributions and shut things down for the night, eager to go to bed with Andi. Once I was there, though, I couldn't even begin to sleep. If you know me, then you know I'm in a pretty unsatisfying rut in a lot of aspects of the ol' life. So little things like the exchange between Scott and me and the results thereof end up keeping me awake. It's why I don't sleep after the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE or a great show at The Worx. When I remember what it's like to actually do something I'm a little proud of, I want to do more.

So I'm trying hard to leave it be. Let what I've done sit so I can settle down and get a good night's rest. But it's awfully hard, because these moments aren't part of the daily routine.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a tuesday

We'll just go ahead and cop to week 2 being the part of the show where the contestants begin to figure out what they do that works and what they do that doesn't. I had some quality banter with PT scheduled for the lulls between acts, but JMatt finally managed to put some good old fashioned fear of God into the contestants and their changes happened pretty quickly and smoothly for once.

Not as good a show as week one, but Phil definitely improved from last week to this one, coming home with the night's best performance.



The rest of the videos for the SHOWCASE can be found here. Next week, it's the Broadway...which will present a pretty big challenge to more than half of this cast unless I miss my guess. So show up this Saturday at 10:30 to Comedy Worx and try to figure out if our six intrepid performers can make Broadway SPARKLE!

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a monday

So the dancing competition for week one of season two of the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE was a lot of fun, with the contestants cross-dressing, cross-undressing, going psycho, dry humping stuffed animals, and in some cases actually dancing. There there was plenty of in-between. We're going to need to see some of the contestants separate themselves from each other in the next weeks, but I think it'll happen eventually.

The night came to a pretty horrific finish for Brice Powers, who finally got a measure of comeuppance when he was chosen to dance in the judges challenge. What happened to him was not for the faint of heart, are alluded to on his facebook page, which should be visited to get the total SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE experience.

However, I really thought the show belonged to PT and Chris, whose performances as Jason Aquarius and Ricky Dean Del Fuego really upped themselves from the first season. So, you know, good job guys.


SUPER SPARKLE judges

just in case you're not tired of the big pink letters yet...

This Saturday. February 28th. 10:30 PM. Comedy Worx. SUPER. SPARKLE. SHOWCASE.

there were a lot of crotch punches

I'm going to be honest. Putting together a second run of the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE is pretty scary. Trying to root through the first season and repeat what worked, cast off what didn't work, and find a few new twists while relying on a new cast of contestants leaves me nervous.*

Last night - in the midst of trying to find what will work for my character to separate him from an American Idol** judge, worrying that all of our contestants this time came from inside the Worx, and hoping that the audience we built will continue to follow the show this time around - we got together to do a photo shoot to get some publicity for the show running.

You know what? I had a blast. It's kind of nice to stop worrying about the how the show will go and remember why we do the things we do in that building. To put together something entertaining while getting to goof off with our friends? That's what it's all about.

* JMatt, the brains and major force behind the SHOWCASE, is likely somewhere so far beyond nervous that he wet himself laughing at how nervous I am for this show.

** Go Anoop! No, seriously, I'm kind of on the bandwagon this time around.

all it does is say "buy my book! buy my book!..."

There's a store. Buy some stuff from there. Wear it to the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE season 2 premiere on February 28th at 10:30 pm at Comedy Worx. You'll be glad you did.

Coming soon(ish)...Brice Powers t-shirts.

hey, talented folks...you should audition and SPARKLE!!!

From the Facebook page...

Hello SPARKLE fans!

As previously announced, SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE will be returning this February for its second season. The show will premiere on Saturday, February 28th and run for six weeks.

We'll be making the "official" audition announcement on Facebook in the next day or two. But since several people have expressed interest in auditions, we wanted to go ahead and get some of the details out there.

Auditions are scheduled for Saturday, January 24th from 12 noon to 3 PM at the Worx Comedy Theater.

To audition, you'll need: a completed application form, a non-returnable headshot of yourself, a performance piece of no longer than two minutes.

More details will be posted soon on Facebook including a F.A.Q. and the necessary forms. So if you or someone you know would be interested in auditioning, please pass along this info to them

If you have any questions, please don't hesistate to ask.

Thanks,
SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE

scrub all you like, it'll stick around for two days

It's back.



So is Brice.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap

The finale was a grand success. Lots of fun, bits on top of bits, and each contestant bringing it hard so that we can say the best show was definitely the last one. Congrats to Jon, who won by setting the bar incredibly high in the first two weeks and playing strong enough to stay ahead by the time everyone else caught up.

I've praised the contestants to no end and I don't think I need to tell you how awesome I was, but there is something I've left out of all these recaps. Jason Matthews worked long and strange hours to pull this thing together so that the rest of us could just focus on having fun with his show.

Thanks, JMatt. Get some rest. There's going to be high demand for a season 2.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a thursday

The word of the week was junk. Stuffed tights, not-so-stuffed tights, and a pair boxers without a button fly all made appearances while a fourth contestant's backup dancer rubbed his junk all up on me(clearly not the way to get a high score). The crowd loved it, and the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE had a helluva night.

What could have been a disaster, when one contestant took somewhere between 4 minutes and eternity to set up his interpretive dance, turned out to be a beautifully fun moment where PT and I got to really have a go at each other(all in good fun and totally in character, of course). The show is supposed to be about the contestants, but that was just a ton of fun.

This week's video? Enjoy Chris Moore's crotch-tastic performance.

Next week is the final week, and the contestants have been ordered only to SPARKLE. I can't wait to see what they'll do with it.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a monday

Saturday night was probably the best show, overall, the SHOWCASE has put on. Most of the contestants have figured out where their strengths are and played them up big. Even as resident jerk Brice Powers, I had to give out three scores of ten.

I originally wanted to post a link to Travis' performance, but I don't know if the video really conveys the sheer, um, Travis-ness of it. Similarly, performances from Jenny and Paul (the other two tens that Brice gave out) don't work on video as well as they did live. So for this week's link I'm going to go with Jon's performance, which I'm retroactively thinking we all underrated.

Due to some of the language used, I don't recommend watching this video in front of people who can fire you, children, or impressionable house plants.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a tuesday night

I can tell you how great the show was. I can plead with you to understand how hysterical the whole show turned out through a weak recap. Or, I can just post a link to the video of runaway winner Jenny Spencer teaching us about the virtues of professional pirating. I'm lazy, so guess which one I'm going to go with.

and now, i begin teasing the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE

In order to provide you, my loyal fanbase, with enticement to watch this week's SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE I shall provide links to two of the better performances from the first two weeks.

Travis Pomeroy performing N'Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me" in week one.

Jon Karnofsky and the lovely and talented Del Flack performing a scene from The Graduate.

Good times. Watch this show.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap

Last night's SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE featured the contestants trying to reenact scenes from the AFI top 100. While some of the contestants were left without ways to properly SPARKLE up their performances, Jon Karnofsky (with help from Del Flack) managed to recreate an iconic scene from The Graduate that was completely worth the price of admission.

Let me go ahead and give PT Scarborough his due for being great as Jason Aquarius, washed up actor and host of the show. He's been great, and worth the price of admission himself. Forgot to mention that last week. My bad.

Next week? The contestants have to teach the audience something. The challenge leaves more room for zaniness and gimmickry, so I expect a heckuva show. Be there, why don't you?

i didn't laugh last night, but that's more due to my commitment to the bit than anything else

Last night was hilarious. The SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE is a six-week long talent competition that I should have been plugging here before the first show rather than the day after it. Still, I can't think of a better way for you to spend $10 on the next five Saturday nights.

This past week was the singing competition. I'm one of the judges for this thing, and all I was told was that the contestants were given a week to put together a performance of a former Billboard #1 single. Travis Pomeroy went first, doing an N'Sync song wearing an apparatus which connected him to two "backup dancers." Hilarious. My first thought was that everyone who followed him was just going to come out and sing...leaving them screwed. Fortunately, the other five contestants came through with gimmicky goodness as well and provided one helluva show.

As the "mean" judge for this marvelous talent competition, I had to pretend not to be having a good time. I also had to work as hard as I ever have to keep myself from laughing at a show with plenty of laugh out loud moments.

So what's on deck for this Saturday? The six contestants will have to act out a scene from one of the AFI's top 100 movies with a partner of their choosing. If the show follows form, I expect them to do more than just recreate great scenes. I expect them to SPARKLE!

my face hurts a little bit this morning

I had more fun in 25 minutes on stage last night than I should ever be allowed. That is all.

how innuendo can segue into a shameless plug if you're not careful

This morning, Ross White brought me into his office and offered me a can of his cherry-flavored soda.

Then he told me to blog about it.

I feel like I owe you more than just a crude suggestion about what Ross and I do behind closed doors. So let me tell you what we did behind closed doors with Beans, Larry Larr The Wizard, and The JMatt. We got the band back together.

For those new to the scene, we were once called Destroy All Monsters. We performed long form improvisational comedy together in a time when most of the greater Raleigh area was unaware and/or unsupportive of that flavor of improv. I was later on teams that were technically better, but I never had more fun than I did with the Monsters.

D.A.M. eventually went our separate ways (with a few random shows in an ice cream parlor on "Historic Airport Road" in Chapel Hill). A few years later, The Worx started embracing long form. JMatt, Larry, and Beans all began to perform with teams formed from that change in philosophy.

When I rejoined the Worx following my nonsense-induced exile, buzz about a Destroy All Monsters reunion began(from those of us who were in it...and from no one else...but still, buzz). The only problem is that I had no desire to make myself eligible for long form at the Worx and Ross had retired from improv altogether to pursue his MFA and to occasionally say "hi" to his wife.

Recently, though, Ross graduated and a new timeslot at the Worx with more relaxed membership requirements opened up. Once an opportunity to get the band back together for a one-off show this coming Friday night at roughly 11:00 PM presented itself, it was hard for any of us to say "no."

So we practiced Monday night. Ross was coming back from years away from the stage. DSI was still doing shows at now-defunct Kings Barcade in downtown Raleigh the last time I was a part of a long form improvisational display. Still, I wanted it to be like riding a bicycle.

It wasn't.

But it was fun. It was lots of fun. I wanted to break out the improv toys that the Comedy Sportz/Worx show doesn't really allow for, and got way too overzealous in spots. We're all comfortable enough that the scenes got disturbingly dirty very quickly. And you know what? People are still going to laugh so hard they pee a little bit come Friday night.

The band is back together for one night. I can't wait.

so, what kind of last name is "struction"?

Yesterday, for the first time since the Icecaps played in Raleigh, I stepped into Dorton Arena yesterday to check out The Carolina Rollergirls in action. I've met people and had friends who have rollergirled it up, but this was my first time actually going to the event.

Andi, Mayo, and I left Durham while it was still a lovely afternoon to meet a crew from my early college years for a pre-bout dinner (and to watch the Penguins rout the Flyers in high def) at the Village Draft House. About an hour-and-a-half of laughing, eating, and commenting on a hockey game no one else was watching, it was time to go. As far as we all knew, it was still quite lovely outside. That is until, on our way out the door, our waitress mentioned that we should drive safely because the weather looked menacing.

Things started to get windy as we made our way over, either that or the road signs were also really into the The Soviettes song we were listening to in order to be properly psyched for the event. Still, no rain.

That is, until we parked the car. Then? A Tsunami. Things let up and we made the run to the back door of Dorton, only to be told we would have to go around to the other side. So around we went, just in time for the sideways downpour of rain. Andi had armed herself with an umbrella, which she held almost perpendicular to the ground for most of our run around the arena. That was good enough to keep the top half of her dry, but her jeans and sandals were soaked through. Mayo and I were soaked through from all accountable fronts. Nothing says potential fun like sitting around in wet underpants for the second time in a weekend.*

Still, undaunted, we took our seats and began reading though the program and enjoying the alter egos of the various Rollergirls(Elka Meano got my vote for best name, with an honorable mention to Trudy Struction). What I should have been doing was reading up on the rules of roller derby, which were printed over several pages in our programs.

Without a formal appreciation for the rules, to say nothing of the strategies, of roller derby, I had to go by instinct. Having chosen to root for the Debutante Brawlers based solely upon the fact that I liked their players' names more than those of the Trauma Queens, I started screaming uninformed smack talk.

"Skate! Skate like the wind! You can't stop her! It's like you're all on square wheels!" I'd scream before taking a look at the program to see little tidbits like the names of the player positions. Armed with a little bit of information, the screaming could be either more or less ignorant. I'll let you decide which shouting "Jammer! Jammer in the face!" falls under.

If nothing else, my poor attempt at engaging the sport at least served to amuse the group sitting in front of us. They just happened to be the halftime entertainment, The Durham Senior Divas, who requested that I get as excited for them as I was for the roller derby action that I was alternately screaming at and reading up on. Unfortunately, all of their routine was directed towards the opposite side of Dorton arena. This is a seating error I won't be repeating next time.

By the second half, the crankiness one usually associates with soggy undergarments set in and I started pleading for more pronounced violence on the track. Either in response to my cries or as a result of the Rollergirls' legs tiring out, we were treated to some seriously awesome and painful-looking wipe outs.

In the end, my Debutante Brawlers survived a late-game comeback attempt from the Trauma Queens to get the win. The sun had started to peek through the clouds, and it was clearly time to head home and slip into a nice, comfy, dry pair of pajamas. I'll be back to see the Carolina Rollergirls again, though. Next time, armed with actual information and a weather forecast, I expect to have even more fun.

*On Friday evening, in one of the more fun ComedyWorx shows I've ever been a part of, I received a crotch full of Dan Bain spittle as a result of his hilarious - but anatomically unsound - portrayal of a whale. I really had no idea he could put that much of the contents of a water bottle in his mouth. I saw Catie Braly for the first time in a bajillion years following that show. When we went out to catch up, the moistened undies were placed in the gym bag with my ComedyWorx pajamas while I was reminded why blue jeans and going commando have never mixed.

it's the end of the world as we know it(and honestly, i'm a little sleepy)

The first official North Carolina Winter Weather Freak-Out of 2007 came down yesterday afternoon. At the temporary gig, I was told to take the lap top home with me because I could very well end up working from home what with all of the winter weather that was about to smack the area.

If I had gone to a grocery store yesterday evening, I would have noticed the Freak-Out gaining momentum as people buy up milk and bread in massive quantities(I've never understood why a Winter Weather Advisory fires the thing in people's brains that signals "I must get bread and milk quickly, for there's snow a-comin'"). As I drove through suburban Durham, I noticed people strategically parking their cars in strange ways and places to avoid the embarrassment and heartache of getting stuck in what was sure to be the second ice age that was on the way.

As I drove to Raleigh to teach a class at The Worx, I noticed that the major roads had already been covered in whatever space-aged agent they use here to prevent freezing. I was actually impressed. It seems that the lessons of a few years back when the entire city of Raleigh was crippled by one inch of snow* to the point that people were sleeping in their cars and in Chili's restaurants because the traffic on the roads was so deadlocked that they couldn't get home.

Still, I understood where we are and what the weather does here(never underestimate the power of one semester of meteorology at NC State) and tried to convince he who was bestowing the lap top that it was unnecessary to be prepping me for homework no matter what Winter Weather Advisory was in effect. My friend unswayed, I took the laptop home with the battery and mouse in my jacket pockets wondering how much it looked like I was making a poor attempt at equipment thievery.

Well, it's 7:30am the next day, and I'm in slacks and a button down shirt watching the news and seeing the two-hour delays that all the schools are granting themselves just to be sure that all the rain doesn't suddenly turn deadly. If I was going to be working from home, rest assured that I'd still be in my pj's and probably still in bed and waiting until 7:59 to get out of it and start my remote jobbing. Nope, I'm going to shut this computer down, get in the car, and drive through the rain to be at work just like I thought I would be.

Because the first Winter Weather Freak-Out of the year is always useless.

*There are some who say that it wasn't the one inch of snow that caused the problem but the sheet of ice that formed over I-40. They're wrong. What actually caused the problem was the entire city freaking out about that one inch of snow at the exact same time and putting way more cars on the road at one time than we could even come close to handling. Liddy Dole and Richard Burr, however, are under the impression that there's no reason they should seek any kind of funding for public transportation for Raleigh, though. It's not because they don't believe in pork. They totally believe in pork. It's because they're idiots. And bad people.