So, before I get going, I’ve got to say this: I’m watching Casino Royale right now. Bond is such a champ. That said, some of his lines are the corniest things ever, and at times, highly inappropriate. I don’t think they would ever actually work in any situation. Actually, scratch that, they would work in one situation…if you were James Bond.

On Wednesday I saw T.J. and Dave again. They were simply incredible. People should really come to visit Chicago. If you don’t see me, that’s cool, but go see T.J. and Dave; your life will be much better for it.

They had a guest performer with them that night. At first, I wasn’t very happy with this. After all, I came to see T.J. and Dave, not T.J. and Dave, and some guy. The guy, as I soon found out was Michael Shannon. This didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but we looked him up later, and we found out that he’s an Oscar nominated actor. He did a great job keeping up with T.J. and Dave, and it turned out to be a great scene. I’m continually impressed by the style I’ve seen them perform. It’s just one long scene with multiple characters. This is not easy to do. They played it perfectly though, and it was funny, and it was natural, and it all made sense. One of my comedy studies teachers said that he had a friend who had been improvising for upwards of a decade. The friend saw T.J. and Dave, called my teacher and said, “I quit” because it’s near impossible to be as good as them. I hope the story is a joke because I hate to see people leave the improv scene, but the point remains: They are so good.

Class on Thursday was pretty fun. We started rehearsing some of the classic Second City scenes in Gellman’s class. It’s nice to see them coming together. I’m doing a scene that’s something like 25 or 30 years old, as well as one from the late 90’s, and one from just a few years ago.

That night, Amy, Bobby, and I wanted to go see the mainstage show to see how it’s changed. We couldn’t get tickets, so we ended up hanging out at Amy’s, watching Mr. Show, and then seeing the SC improv set. A word about Mr. Show: Much like T.J. and Dave, this is one of those shows that makes you sad that you’ll never be that good. Mr. Show is sketch at some of it’s best.

We didn’t have a workshop on Friday, but a bunch of us still got together to do some longform. Of the first two longforms I did, one was based off of stuff from someone’s wallet, and the other was based off a monologue. I had never done either of those before, although I had seen them at various theaters. I’d wanted to for a while, and I was really happy with the results. I though both sets were really strong. This was where the homophobic moose character came from. I don’t exactly remember where it came from, but there were, at any give time, three of them, and they would have their own scenes as well as comment on things they found “gay” in other scenes.

After everyone left, Bobby and I tried to do a long single scene, T.J. and Dave style. I was actually surprised with how well it went. Our characters were developed, we used the environment, and best of all, we listened to each other. That’s the key in a two-man long scene improv. We were able to call stuff back, and overall, make the thing as natural as possible. This is definitely something we want to keep working on. It’s a lot of fun, and extremely rewarding.

That night we went to a party at Mike’s house. The party was a lot of fun. Good times were had. The best thing about going to a party at Mike’s, however, is the 2 in the morning Red Line train ride back. You meet the best people. This time, we met this guy who was handing out life lessons and telling us stories about Chicago in the 80’s. Jamie Foxx should play this guy.

Yesterday was a great day. We went from pumpkin carving at Steph and Brad’s (and Business’.) From there, we went to a BYOB Thai place. Oh boy did we bring our own booze. From there we went to Sam’s to hang out. Again, good times were had.

It’s pretty cold for October today, and the rumor is it might snow. I think the day is going to turn into a laze around/do homework (yes…we have that) day.