Co-Optitude

Album of the Month:
Superior Complaints by Locust Street Taxi
The latest album from our very own Orange Fool Nathan Geyer’s band! As usual it is full of quirky, funny, ska/jazz/funk/reggae/country-infused songs. This time they did a very careful job of partnering with some excellent producers and technicians, and so the production quality is through the roof. It sounds quite amazing. My favorite tracks include the brassy, swinging “Dear Carbon Nanotubes”; the straight-up reggae of “Midnight Snack (in Africa)”; and the frighteningly-accurate late-1980s R&B tribute “Swantown Inn” (complete with bonus rap interlude).

Game of the Month:
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards
A funny competitive card game wherein you try to make spells by combining the various spell-component cards in your hands to comedic and damaging effects. The titles of the spells end up often being squarely in the potty-humor realm, and the illustrations are of the gross-out variety a-la Ren & Stimpy et al. It’s completely juvenile, but it is a lot of fun, especially when you’ve got five or six people playing simultaneously. A game lasts until only one wizard hasn’t been killed, but an ingenious play mechanic lets the “dead” characters draw cards from a special “dead wizard deck” each round until the current game ends, and then use those cards in the next game. Sometimes they’re very useful! It is fast-paced and ridiculous, and I thoroughly enjoy playing it.

Recorded Live!

Yes, that’s right, Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount did a Live In-Studio on KEXP!

It took it a while to be put up on the website, but now you can listen to the 4 songs they performed, or the whole half-hour segment.

This is unbelievably awexome! KEXP is a big deal! It’s one of the most well-respected radio stations in the world, and even though it is based in the Northwest it has devoted listeners all the heck over the place.

By the way, the next JM+FFD show is this Saturday the 25th at The Crocodile in Seattle, where they are the opening act for the CD release of “Happy, Good Looking, and in Love” by Friends and Family. Also on the bill are the Hoot Hoots! So you should check that out (I won’t be going because of Fools Play).

How is it that this movie came to garner my support when so many others have not? Well, for starters it’s being made locally: all Western Washington cast and crew and whatnot. For another thing, it’s got a pretty intriguing premise that fits very well into our enlightened, Pacific-Northwest mindset:

Colby’s dad knows his son is gay, but he doesn’t like talking about it. He respects it, but ignores everything about that aspect of his son’s life – he doesn’t even know about Colby’s long-term boyfriend, Rusty.

Increasingly committed to Rusty, Colby hatches a plan to trick his father into camping with Rusty under the pretense that Rusty is Colby’s straight friend and future business partner. Colby is convinced that, given the chance, his father and his boyfriend will get along great…

But what REALLY sealed the deal for me was the fact that my pals Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount were hired to write the soundtrack for the movie. The ENTIRE soundtrack!

Here’s their Kickstarter vid so you can learn more:

As an added bonus, they’ve also hired Ellen McLain, who you probably know as the voice of GLaDOS from the Portal games (and in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Pacific Rim extravaganza) as one of the on-screen characters in the film. She’s also gotten involved in the Kickstarter campaign, and let’s just say that this time the cake is NOT a lie:

And what’s that song that was playing in the background during that video? Why it’s “Skatepark” by Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!

SOLD!

Be like me (you know you wanna) and support this film’s Kickstarter campaign. Also find them elsewhere on the internets:
There’s Facebook: – http://www.facebook.com/winningdad
Twitter: – http://twitter.com/winningdadmovie
and their Newsletter: – http://eepurl.com/p5dHn

Eff… Pee… Arr… Ell…

This is a very exciting thing, and I hope most all of you come to see it. For more information go to the Fools Play Website (foolsplay.net).

And here is where you go:

1. I made a new blog just for baby updates: Updates on the Harris/Hamm Baby!
http://harrishammbaby.blogspot.com

2. I created a Facebook Group: I Want Updates on the Harris/Hamm Baby!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/harrishammbaby/
Mostly it will re-post information that is in the new baby blog.

So there you go! Now you can be updated as much (or as little) as you want.

I’ll be back soon with a movie review of Iron Man 3, and probably one for the new Star Trek shortly thereafter. Cheers!

That’s not a jelly bean…

Yes, it’s true! A small handful of you are already aware of this, but Carrie caught the preggers! Sometime around Halloween she will release our wee beb into the world. It’s terrifically exciting! HAPPY BIRFDAY TO ME!

So, some brief info: mum and baby both seem to be having a completely normal pregnancy. We won’t learn the gender for another 5-6 weeks. And we won’t reveal the baby’s name until AFTER it is borned.

But here is my pledge to you: none of my online places (this blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.) are going to transform into thousands-of-baby-photos-and-non-stop-updates-about-baby places. ThisisChris.com will continue to be my pop-culture reserve (though updates might happen even LESS frequently), and I am probably going to almost completely abandon Facebook (I still get on there for Fools Play and my work, so I’ll still check messages and notifications and invites) because, frankly, I now have more important things to do with my time than dink around on Facebook.

If you ARE interested in baby updates, let me know. I might start up a second blog or something if demand is high enough.

HELLZ YEAH! OUR BABBY WILL BE BEST BABBY!

But have you ever wondered what would happen if you did that in a microgravity environment? WHO HASN’T!?

Well, a couple of Canadian high school students wondered. And so they asked the Canadian Space Agency, which asked Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who is currently aboard the International Space Station. And here’s what happened:

(http://youtu.be/lMtXfwk7PXg)

SCIENCE IS THE BEST THING EVER.

Chris Hadfield, by the way, is one of the coolest astronauts around right now. This isn’t the first question he’s answered via YouTube. He periodically uploads answers to various questions as part of SPACE.com’s YouTube Channel. Scroll through and you’ll see some here and there among the uploads. WATCH ALL OF THEM.

He also has an excellent twitter feed that he uses live from the ISS. Because SCIENCE IS THE BEST THING EVER. He periodically tweets photos of some amazing things. Like this:

Psychedelic ice swirls off the North Japan coast. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) April 19, 2013

So all y’all twitterers should probably follow him. Because SCIENCE IS THE BEST THING EVER.

My Birthday Wish List!

Album of the Month:
Nanobots by They Might Be Giants
Still as prolific as ever, They Might Be Giants have put out another “adult” album. This one has one of the strongest starts of any album; the series of the first nine songs is absolutely top-notch. That might seem like a lot of songs; many albums only have 10-12 songs total. This is They Might Be Giants, though, so there are actually about 25 songs on the album. The middle section flounders a bit, with a series of short songs that aren’t quite self-contained, but aren’t quite in the “Fingertips” style. The final stretch is much stronger, with songs like “Replicants” and “Icky.” It’s one of the better “adult” efforts by TMBG in the 21st Century.

Movie of the Month:
Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of James Bond
A fascinating documentary that chronicles the behind-the-scenes, making-of antics of the James Bond series, including Ian Fleming himself, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the undying specter of Kevin McClory, George Lazenby’s insane meltdown, the bizarre twist that kept Pierce Brosnan from becoming Bond for almost 10 years, and much more. This documentary has a trick of inserting footage from the Bond films when talking about real-world events. For example, when talking about the lawyers getting involved in the Broccoli/Saltzman turmoil it intercuts with Bond footage of various boardroom meetings and people passing papers around. It’s a very clever technique. I knew most of the information contained in this documentary already, but seeing it all in one place in chronological order is a treat. Plus, this has perhaps the greatest opening of any Bond movie ever: the six-gun sniper shot. So badass. You’ll see.

Last Saturday, April 6th, something pretty spectacular happened. Fools Play Improv celebrated it’s 20th Anniversary. Now, how did we come up with that math? Because that’s when Me, Mike, Ed, Geoff, and Josh first got on stage. Sure, we weren’t Fools Play at that time. We joined another troupe. But the five of us getting up on stage was the beginning of our improv career.

And that was in April of 1993. Hence 20 years.

We’ve known for a long time that the 20th anniversary was coming, and we knew we wanted it to be somehow special. Not a bullshit “special” like most of our anniversary specials have been, but an actually-special special. And we figured one of the best ways to honor the last 20 years of improv was to include for reals as much of that history into the show as possible.

And so we reached out to performers who had been on stage with us at at all points in the last 20 years and asked them if they could come re-join us for one special night. And many did.

But that wasn’t special enough! Oh, no! Not nearly! We also reached out to past (and many lapsed) and present audience members, especially ones who had seen us at more than one venue, and asked if they could participate in the show as well. But not as performers. How, you ask? As interviewees for a set of “documentaries” that we produced about Fools Play, and aired live during the show.

Here’s the documentary that opened the night: The Story of Fools Play. I’ll let it speak for itself:

http://youtu.be/ffD6A85LkR4

And that’s how the last 20 years happened.

The 2nd documentary was about all the colored-shirt Fools, and you can watch that one here: http://youtu.be/v1ICgMkSvwI

It was an incredible night. I was surrounded by friends and people I love, both up on stage and in the audience. An audience that was so packed that we ran WAY out of chairs, and we may have exceeded the legal, fire-code limit of the building (I’m not saying that we did… but…). Just take a look:

But the most special moment of the night for me came at the very end. You see, Fools Play has been around as an entity for 20 years, yes. But not everyone has been in Fools Play for all those 20 years. Josh split off with Joel to form their own troupe over a decade ago. Ed retired a few years back. Geoff took a hiatus one year to go to China, and now only performs part-time. Mike took an entire year hiatus to go to film school. So even though Fools Play has been around for 20 years, nobody has actually been in Fools Play for all 20 of those years…

Except for me.

That’s right: I am the only Fool who has never taken an extended hiatus or retired in all those 20 years. Sure I’ve missed plenty of shows here and there (probably more than 200 missed shows total), but the only break I took was when I was hospitalized for three weeks and the recovery afterwards… during which time I still performed in a show by phone, so that was more like taking sick days than it was taking a hiatus!

So I knew that this fact was going to be acknowledged. In fact we had a bit planned where the Whales would come interrupt our show and complain that none of us had been there for the full 20 years, and then my puppet “You” would show up and explain that I had! And that happened. But then something surprising happened after that.

My brother brought out a box and from it drew forth an award. An actual award that had been made just for me… and it lights up!

20 Years Full Time Performing

And then the over-packed audience full of friends and loved ones gave me a for-real standing ovation. Holy crap:

http://youtu.be/J39TxBRh76o

It was a very moving moment. I gave a speech. A surprisingly, honestly heartfelt speech! I transcribe it for you here:

Me: This is really awesome.

A lot of people have asked me over the years why I’ve done this every saturday night for more than half my life. I don’t know what idiot put a 15 year old kid on stage, but I think he’s somewhere around…

Ed: [Pointing at Howard] He’s here…

Me: He’s here! But I am eternally grateful.

Y’know, there’s many other things that potentially one could do on a Saturday night. But I don’t know why. Because this is, look around here. I met my wife by doing Fools Play. This audience is full of my friends and loved ones, and it’s just an amazing thing.

And, uh, this is actually heartfelt. Weird.

But it’s more than just a social thing for me. I heard a long time ago, I don’t remember who said it, but there’s a phrase that goes, “Happiness is an organism doing its intended purpose efficiently.” And I’m one of those rare people who know, I know what makes me happy.

What makes me happy is entertaining people.

Whether, you know, I have a blog that I update every once in a while. I write music. But Fools Play is so immediate. I get up on a stage in front of people and make them laugh. And it’s a huge, huge source of happiness for me.

And that’s really the reason that I’ve been doing this for 20 years, is because Fools Play is happiness for me. And I don’t see why it’s weird to do that for 20 years.

Mike: So chris, would you say that fools play for 20 years, that just isn’t weird?

Me: [In Weird's voice] “That’s not weird.”

So I just want to express my unbelievable gratitude to Fools Play for allowing me to do this for so long. And [to the audience] thank you for allowing me to be happy.

Thank you.

I of course said all of that while a puppet was on my hand. And, yes, I got a plug for this blog in the speech

Seriously, I cannot truly express how grateful I am to have been able to do Fools Play for the past 20 years. Here’s to 20 more.

So that happened.