{"id":153,"date":"2009-06-26T20:17:05","date_gmt":"2009-06-27T01:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/?p=153"},"modified":"2009-06-26T20:17:05","modified_gmt":"2009-06-27T01:17:05","slug":"what-a-month-no-wait-i-meant-what-a-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/?p=153","title":{"rendered":"What a month! No. Wait. I meant “What?!? A month?!?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yeah, so that’s a title I wrote when I realized I’d gone a month without making a blog entry.\u00a0 Since then, another month and more (nearly two, for a total of three!) has passed.\u00a0 Admittedly, some of the thrill has gone out of this, since in theory, anyone who wants an update on my life can just pick up a phone.\u00a0 And, of course, though still unique as a snowflake, my life has lost some of that exotic flavor it had when I began this blog o’ mine.\u00a0 But a writer writes, and hey, I<\/em> still find my life interesting, so here’s a condensed (hopefully!) version of what’s happened since last I posted.<\/p>\n

Passover!\u00a0 I may have missed latkes, but home just in time for sweet potato kugel!\u00a0 For those of you not familiar with Jewish holidays, Passover (or Pesach, if you will) is the holiday where the Jewish respect for tradition is pitted against the Jewish love of eating.\u00a0 The game is played like this: You have to make it through a certain amount of ceremony before you can start eating.\u00a0 All through the ceremony (or seder, if you will), you are teased with small amounts of what is technically food but in no means satisfies hunger, e.g. salty parsley, horseradish, matzoh.\u00a0 As the seder continues, those who just want to eat already start testing the resolve of those who want to pray and discuss with a combination of sarcasm and complaining; this process is encouraged through the ritual drinking of wine.\u00a0 It ends when the person leading the seder gives up and says “Yeeshlehu”, which I believe is Hebrew for “Uncle!”<\/p>\n

Actually, it wasn’t as bad as all that.\u00a0 I just feel bad seeing my father play Don Quixote year after year, trying to engage the windmills in a discussion of the nature of slavery.\u00a0 But the crowd this year was actually on the respectful side of our spectrum, and the food was delicious (if unleavened.)\u00a0 Plus the parable of the Four Sons makes me think this particular issue isn’t specific to us, so there’s some miserable company out there to be sure.<\/p>\n

Shortly after that, I began my reintegration into Toronto improv society.\u00a0 As it turned out, Tom MacKay was having a birthday party, so I managed to see most of everyone all at once (Bad Dog folks, at least).\u00a0 It was nice, and Ashley was there as well, so there was some good transitional reminiscing thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 And though it took me a little bit after that to start doing shows again, I was well on the way to being back.<\/p>\n

Around this time, I also decided to audition for Second City again.\u00a0 I thought it was just something that people did, and the only real conversation I’d had about it was with Ian and Alice in Miami, and it was mostly them regretting that they weren’t going to be back in time to do them.\u00a0 So I signed up for them, and then everyone I mentioned it to looked at me like I was crazy and wondering why I was bothering since they already knew me.\u00a0 So I somewhat went into the auditions wondering if I’d done the right thing, but my logic (or at least the thing I kept repeating to myself so I wouldn’t feel like an idiot) is that if you want to work for someone, and they’re having auditions, you do the auditions.\u00a0 And that if you’ve got what they’re looking for, the more they see it, the better.\u00a0 So that was what I was repeating to myself going in.<\/p>\n

The first round went pretty well.\u00a0 Good laughs, good playing the game, good times.\u00a0 Sadly, the line I most wanted to deliver came during a two-person scene that I wasn’t in, and it took everything I had to hold it inside.\u00a0 It took place at a police lineup and the cop character said “I play basketball with the force,” and my mind screamed “Like a Jedi?!?”\u00a0 I include it here because dammit, someone has to laugh at that line or an angel loses its wings.<\/p>\n

Brad, Evan’s roommate, was in the audition with me, and knowing that I’d be all distracted until I’d received the callback call (or enough time had passed to know it wasn’t coming), I tagged along with him while he did some errands, and then we went and drank beers on a patio.\u00a0 Fun times were had, and it was nice to get to know him a little without Evan.\u00a0 (Not that they aren’t very funny together, because they are.)\u00a0 And I was nicely juiced when I got the call, which was a load-off.<\/p>\n

As for the callback, I don’t know quite how to feel about it.\u00a0 It was probably my worst audition ever for Second City, but it seemed to be getting a pretty good response, and everyone seemed to be kind of off, so it’s hard to tell.\u00a0 For the sketch, I was paired with Kevin Matviw, and I had to play his distant, cold, disapproving father (they’re at a ballgame together, the son’s a big nerd.)\u00a0 Sandy was our director, and he basically told me that the scene was given to me specifically as a challenge; I was really positive in my improv and tend to have that nervous-cheerful thing going on, so the idea was to see if I could play a scene without a smile.\u00a0 I don’t know how much I pulled it off (against type is against type), but it seemed to go over well.\u00a0 The improv sets were pretty off, with a few scenes wiped just as they were starting to get interesting, but again, they seemed off for everybody, and again, though I wasn’t necessarily happy with the scenes as scenes or my character work, they were getting laughs, which I guess counts for something.\u00a0 Hopefully.<\/p>\n

A fun thing at the auditions: I saw old friend Ken Lawson, in from Vancouver, for the callback session after mine.\u00a0 A not-so-fun thing: that was the only time I saw him.\u00a0 Phone number exchange snafu.\u00a0 Stupid technology.\u00a0 Oh well, I got my hug.<\/p>\n

Later that weekend, I got a pretty nice boost when I bumped into Doug Morency before a show and he told me he’d thought I was really funny at the audition.\u00a0 In secular Toronto comedy terms, this is kind of the equivalent of the clouds parting and a hand reaching down from the heavens and patting you on the back.\u00a0 So whatever else comes of it, I have that.\u00a0 The show I saw him before was part of the Bad Dog’s anniversary celebrations, The Super Troupes of Comedy.\u00a0 In one night, I saw Fast and Dirty, the Alumni Cafe, Falcon Powder, and the Williamson Playboys.\u00a0 It was mind-blowing.\u00a0 MIND-BLOWING!\u00a0 And then the anniversary party, which is always a trip down memory lane.<\/p>\n

After this, the world became a blur (a slow blur, but still a blur) of hanging out, watching TV (oh, how I made up for lost time!) and reading books, playing a little basketball (Ballers of Comedy, East!), and shows here and there.\u00a0 Oh, and a smidge of work.\u00a0 I will do a separate post talking about books and TV, my little bit of public service.\u00a0 As for improv, the highlights of May (i.e. the shows I remember) include the A Night at the Improv where we made a Tennessee Williams play and I played Handsome Hal, the diamond mine field hand with the catchphrase “I will not be seduced,”\u00a0 and a Macro Neato which was a lot of fun and will be remembered by me for doing a scene with the great Lisa Merchant that was largely about masturbation.\u00a0 You can’t buy memories like that.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of the month, the family Hershfield celebrated a milestone as father Larry turned 60.\u00a0 This was celebrated with a big old barbecue, complete with Kelekis hot dogs shipped in from Winnipeg.\u00a0 And of course, one of Mother’s giant cakes.\u00a0 It looked like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lots of guests in attendance, a testament to my father’s, well, je-ne-sais-quoi.\u00a0 And towards the end, there was a sing-along, with his friend Braz on guitar and cousin Shelly on piano, which made him giddy as a schoolgirl.<\/p>\n

Then with the guests gone and the house significantly cleaned, Evan and I presented our gift.\u00a0 It was a presentation that lasted about three hours.\u00a0 For our gift, we made a compilation video entitled “Larry Hershfield’s Pantheon of Shitheads: 60 Shithead Scenes for 60 Shithead Years.”\u00a0 For most of our lives (well, pretty much all), we have been schooled in comedy by movie and television “shitheads” shared with us by our father, and so it made sense to us to collect the greatest and throw them all together.\u00a0 For the record, he loved it, and I’m quite proud of it.\u00a0 It’s amazing watching it how much of a tutorial in funny it is and how incredible talent is (Jackie Gleason, Dom Deluise…you can’t NOT laugh!).\u00a0 And, as Larry pointed out, if he ever goes senile on us, we can just put it on replay and he’ll be happy forever.<\/p>\n

And so we enter June.\u00a0 And with it, a new apartment.\u00a0 It’s a bachelor, it’s in Forest Hill Village (Spadina, north of St. Clair), and it’ll do.\u00a0 Nice neighborhood, walking distance to a subway station, and certainly nice to get natural light!\u00a0 Come up and see me some time.<\/p>\n

In terms of improv, there was some excitement with my Harold team, Tonight at Noon, which ended with the team being dissolved.\u00a0 I’m not entirely privy to all the details, but it seems I returned to a team that was somewhat in disarray, and things didn’t really improve.\u00a0 And they were shaking things up with the night, so it really did make sense.\u00a0 Ah well, ’twas fun while it lasted, and while the group will be missed, I must confess to being pretty excited about my new team, Mr. Clean.\u00a0 Of course, June was Hat Harold month, with most teams being picked out of a hat, so we haven’t performed together as a group yet, but on paper, a very fun and exciting team.\u00a0 And Jerry Schaefer is coaching, so that’s more goodness as well.<\/p>\n

Other improv activities of note include attending the Combustion Festival, which was a veritable Vancouver reunion (always nice) and a chance to see those PROJECTproject folks in action, which I always enjoy but rarely get to do, as their regular night conflicts with my regular night (though I hear they’re moving, so hopefully…), being the special guest “star” in a show with teens being taught by Mr. Ted Hallett (they apparently felt “privileged” to play with me, which, let’s face it, is both sweet and funny), and shows a-plenty.\u00a0 I also taped quite a few of my shows this month (as I have to put together a bit of a reel for a festival I’m applying to), so expect to see one up shortly.\u00a0 For those of you who might be interested in that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

Going back in time now (whoa!), there was an event I took part in that I thought would make a good closing to a long overdue post: The World’s Biggest Guitar Jam.\u00a0 Alas, it turned into (at best) The World’s Second-Biggest Guitar Jam.\u00a0 But hey, it was a good time, I got out a good crowd (Dan, Mark, Kirk, Joanna…and indirectly, Brian Chambers), it taught me Neil Young’s “Helpless” (the version we played, at any rate, which sounds right, and is the easiest song I’ve ever learned), and it felt like a happening.\u00a0 Alas, one thing that kind of sucked (besides missing the record, of course) was that the band that was playing overpowered all the acoustic guitars, which to me, totally defeated the purpose of the exercise.\u00a0 Even if it had all been white noise, it would have been fun to hear everyone playing at once.\u00a0 For that song, they really should have just had drums and a singer, just to keep everyone in time.\u00a0 But what the hell, guitar playing outside, just like a dirty, dirty hippie!<\/p>\n

Here’s a link, complete with some pictures of the event:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.luminato.com\/2009\/events\/44<\/p>\n

And here are some pictures of my own:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Can you tell which guy doesn’t play guitar?\u00a0 I can.<\/p>\n

All right, so that didn’t work as the big exciting capper I was hoping for, so I decided to wait until the Chief’s wedding.\u00a0 Alas, I took no pictures, relying on other people to have done that.\u00a0 Time will tell if I was right.\u00a0 But here’s a recap:<\/p>\n

Friday:<\/p>\n