This was a really great show that we got to perform with comedian Rob O'Reilly! Make sure you check out his stuff; it's pretty funny.
Other highlight: they served snacks!
Also, Jonathan decided it was a good idea to rip a phone book in half.
I bought a Flip Camera right before the show, so it makes it easy to create fun little videos like this, so you can look forward to more of it in the future!
10/28/09 was our third time performing at MCLA, and it's always a pleasure! The school's mascot is "the Trailblazers", which is basically a hiker.... Yep, a fearsome dude with a hiking stick and boots.... go team....
We love MCLA, those kids are the best and we hope they continue to bring us every year for forever!
RHIT is another engineering school with a grossly disproportionate ratio of guys to girls. Basically, they are the smartest geeks you've ever met, and they are a lot of fun to perform for. The highlight of this show was during the questions from the audience segment of our show, because they asked a really fun question, "Have you ever gotten hurt during a show?" I got to launch into all my stories of almost getting hurt, and Jonathan helped me act them out in slow motion 3D (sort of). I'm not going to tell you those stories here; you'll have to come to one of our shows and ask that question yourself during that segment.
Knox College is one of those schools that takes the "Liberal" in Liberal Arts College to heart. It's the kind of school that has a football team whose players can't remember the last time they won a game (yet somehow sponsored by Nike), but boasts an intramural frisbee team that will destroy you with amazing hippie athleticism the likes of which you didn't know existed.
The girls on the activities board had entertaining reactions to the stunts in our show. They were terrified of my juggling props, especially the knife. Pre-show, I was trying to demonstrate that it's not sharp or fearsome and held it up to my neck, at which point one of them about had a heart attack due to her complete phobia of anything having to do with necks... Even talking about something touching anyone's neck makes her squirm and go pale. I made a bunch of inside jokes during the show for these girls because I thought their reactions were funny.... Jonathan's contortion tricks made them cover their eyes... what can ya do?
The audiences at Vincennes have a reputation as being pretty raucous, and they didn't fail us when we did our show there on 10/22/09. We were a little worried that nobody would show up to the show because they were presenting us in a space that was brand-new to the campus, and none of the students seemed to know where it was, but we had a nice sized audience anyway.
For some reason there was a baby in pumpkin costume out in the audience... It wasn't weird that it was in a pumpkin costume (it was close to Halloween), it's just that we don't get many babies attending our college shows. Jonathan threatened to do juggling tricks with it. I was sort of disappointed that he didn't.
Freaking amazing show except for one thing: my shirt got stolen! Yeah, some girl stole my shirt! If you have seen either my solo show or The ShowOff Show, you know that the rules of my skateboard catapult trick are that every time I miss the trick I have to remove a piece of clothing. Most of the time, it takes me four attempts and I have to take off my long sleeved shirt, at which point I use the oportunity to wrap it around a spectator's neck, and then towel whip another guest, and ocassionaly I throw the shirt at a third audience member. I have ALWAYS gotten the shirt back... but this time the girl kept it. I didn't realize she had claimed it as a trophy until after she was long gone... Oh well, what can ya do?
The show at IUS turned out to be an unexpectedly fun show where we made some great friends. We didn't expect much because the advisor of the activities board had told us she would be surprised if we had 10 people show up. There wasn't really a dinner hour at this school for some reason, so we couldn't do much of a teaser... In fact, I had to hunt around campus and do tricks for study groups tucked away in corners of hallways to drum up an audience for the show. But man, it turned out to be great! Although it was a modest sized audience, it filled the room with laughter and energy and made us feel great. It's shows like these where we feel like real professionals in our field of entertainment.
Wartburg College brought us in for Family Weekend entertainment on 10/10, and the show was delightful! Before the show, the Activities Board (or whatever they're called at Wartburg) took us out to eat at the local pizza place, and I had the special Octoberfest Pizza, which had bratwurst and sauerkraut on it- which was amazing and delicious! We learned that Wartburg was a castle that Martin Luther holed up in after refusing to recant at "the diet of Worms", (which is not what you think).
In the morning, we drove our rental SUV back to the airport and headed off for some much needed time at home. The SUV we had rented all week is worth talking about: the Toyota Seqoia is even larger than our past behemouth GMC Sienna. We had dubbed the Sienna "the GMC Elephant", and we are dubbing the Seqoia "the Toyota Aircraft Carrier". We think that it actually had another car located inside rather than a spare tire. The thing had two cupholders in every door, and three more in the center console. Also in the center console was a compartment large enough to store a small child, or at least both of our laptop computers. There were literally 8 compartments in which to keep your sunglasses, and two glove boxes. At 16 miles per gallon, it was 20% less fuel efficient than the GMC, and didn't have as many nice luxury features, like heated seats, a gate that went up in the back... the Toyota just wasn't as nice.
Saint Catherine's University, dubbed by the students "Saint Kate's", is an all girls' Catholic College in St. Paul, MN, complete with a convent! Saint Catherine is the patron saint of many things, including (my favorites): unwed girls, dying people, knife sharpeners, and lawyers.
When we arrived at the school, I broke out in hives and assumed I was having some kind of allergic reaction to something I had eaten earlier that day (I'm not allergic to anything, but who knows). The joke became that I must have developed an allergy to girls! A few days later, I learned that I had been bitten by bed bugs during my sleep at the hotel the night before. Ironically, someone had actually said to me "don't let the bed bugs bite" over Facebook Chat that very night. I had always thought that the whole bed bugs thing was just a saying, but it turns out they are incredibly tenacious little bugs that are a serious problem if you don't protect yourself from them. And it doesn't help to stay in high end hotels, they can and do infest even the best.
One interesting note: In our "balloon animals 101" segment, our recording says, "how about you sir, yes, you sir", which would have been awkward at the all girls school if it weren't for one young lady's fortunate boyfriend in attendance.
Our show at Aurora University in Aurora IL (home of Wayne's World) was quite possibly the best show we have ever put on. Everything just fell into place in the perfect way to make it truly amazing. First off, the room was the perfect size and had excellent acoustics. The audience was close enough for fast and personal interactions, and they were more than willing to interact with us boisterously. Our 'Questions From the Audience' segment of the show was especially memorable! (I'll post a video soon!). Apparently the window to the sound and lighting booth resembles that of the "the Banker" on "Deal or No Deal". I've never watched the show so I didn't know, but Jonathan made a joke about it and got a good laugh. I neglected to take a picture of it for your comparisons, sorry. This was definitely the longest show we've ever done, running at almost an hour and a half!
As you look through the pictures you will notice some Wizard of Oz costumes. We were at Aurora as part of homecoming week, which had a theme of "There's No Place Like A. U."
A couple of students at Radford University saw my solo street show at the Baltimore Inner Harbor and decided to bring the SHOWOFF Show! to their school for family weekend. We had a really nice time there.
Radford Virginia is known for its population of Scottish heritage , and the town was celebrating its annual Highlander Festival on campus grounds while we were there. We caught just the tail end of the goings-on when we arrived, but it seemed like a really great event. What's super cool about Scottish festivals is the Highland games, which are basically competitions in feats of strength. The most ridiculous game, in my opinion, is the caber toss, in which competitors try to throw a telephone pole as far as possible. It must go end over end to count. You can't just heave it. According to Wikipedia, there are also music and dance competitions at highland games, but that just seems a little too educational for me.
The University of Wisconsin Stout actually used a circus theme for their homecoming in anticipation of our show on October 2nd. All of the homecoming court was dressed in some kind of circus themed costume (notice one of our volunteers in the pictures), and we were told that there had been stupid human trick competitions earlier in the week. We were really impressed with the posters they made, and the lighting on the stage was freaking amazing!
Wisconsin Stout is located in a town named "Menomonie" which made us laugh because it reminds us of the classic muppets song sketch.
Sunday was a day off for us, so we went to Columbus, OH to visit our favorite magician friend Michael Kent. On the way we stopped off for a round of mini golf, where Jonathan stomped me by 14 strokes, boasting 4 hole in ones. After trouncing me on the green he proceeded to successfully attack the high score on the Ms Pac Man machine.
At the Kent residence, we watched football (Steelers lost), and talked with Michael about how our shows have been going (we've all been having an amazing year). We played with the dogs, went out to eat, and had an overall solid day of "R&R".
On Monday 9/28, we flew to St. Louis for a show at the University of Illinois at Springfield, but before driving to the school, we took a little time to go check out the St. Louis Arch. I'm a big fan of the Arch, and having grown up in Missouri, I have been to visit it many times. It looks really interesting from each different angle. When you're right up next to it it seems like it could be a giant slide. We didn't go to the top this time, but we did check out the free "Museum of Westward Expansion" below the arch. Interesting! Historic! Educational! Free!
Our show at the UIS was an MC spot hosting their homecoming pep rally. We introduced the various varsity sports teams and the homecoming court. It was a drastically different experience performing in a gymnasium to bleachers (as opposed to a theater) during a pep rally, but we didn't suck. And got some laughs, too.
U of Illinois at Springfield has a unique mascot, "the Prairie Star". Nobody really knows what the Prairie Star is because it's something that the school invented, but it was described to us as "a blue star with a constipated face". Check out the pictures and decide for yourself.
P.S. This was the last day for Jonathan's Mustache. Some day he'll post his thoughts on the subject.
On the morning of 9/26 we dropped off our amazing GMC Elephant at the Minneapolis airport, flew to Columbus, Ohio, and picked up a vastly inferior Kia Sportage. I'm all jaded now; no rental car will ever impress me again.
Marrieta is in Ohio right on the border of West Virginia, and we arrived with no problems for Parents' Weekend. The problem occurred during set-up: I noticed I was missing the receiving end of the wireless presenter remote I use to advance the slides in the show. The school didn't have one, so I had to go out in search of a new one for purchase. I went to Wal-Mart. Nope. None at Radio Shack, either. I drove over the river, into West Virgina, where I went to the Office Depot, the mall Radio Shack, and a different Office Depot, where I bought something that wasn't billed as being compatible with my system. I bought it anyway.
The venue, which looked as though it had been a grocery store once upon a time, (and was called the Gathering Spot, known as the G Spot of the student body), had an amazing mural that was straight out of the '80s, and in the main rec room, where we were performing, was a Ms. Pac Man machine that Jonathan totally forgot to play, despite the organizers having given him a quarter. We went out to eat Mexican food with girls from the Activities Council, and allowed them to feed us- and by 'us', I mean 'me'- many many Margaritas. The things we'll do for our art.
Oh, and five minutes after we took our final bows, and were packing up our gear, guess what I found?
Right. You knew already that that's when I'd find it.
Back in Minneapolis, we had a day off to catch up on computer work and also to visit the Walker Modern Art Museum. The Walker currently is free admission on Thursday evenings (sponsored by Target, which is headquartered out of Minneapolis). Modern art museums are amazing and frustrating at the same time: some of the exhibits are so cool you want to jump up and down with excitement, and some are literally just a nail in a stick. One of my favorite things was a video installation of a shed that had been loaded with explosives and filmed in high speed slow motion (does that make sense?), and then looped just before it blows itself to bits. You see the shed just expanding and contracting as though it's breathing. I couldn't take pictures here, so you'll to have to go see it for yourself.
Our show at the University of St. Thomas was packed beyond the point of standing room only, and that always feels good to our egos. St. Thomas is the patron saint of Catholic schools, which is pretty specific if you ask me. During our Questions From The Audience segment of the show, we had someone ask if we know the stanky leg dance, which we didn't, so he came up to demonstrate. Here is a link to the dumbest dance on earth.
After a long drive through the Minnesota countryside, we arrived in the lakeside city of Duluth to perform at the College of Saint Scholastica. Saint Scholastica, the patron saint of education, was a woman! Fascinating. The show was poorly attended, but the people who were there were highly entertained, so we were happy.
After the show, the students took us to eat at a local bar/restaurant where we had good food, but lousy service. While we were waiting for the arrival of our meals, a busboy came by and tried to steal our flatware. We told him we hadn't eaten yet while he was in the middle of scooping up all the forks and spoons and knives, at which point he stopped dead in his tracks, slowly set the flatware down, and quietly slunk away from the table.
The next day, we took a few hours to check out Duluth and its charms. It gets so cold there in the winter that the entire downtown area is connected by skywalks so that you never have to go outside. So, from what I understand, it's not totally crazy for it to get as cold as -80°f, before wind chill, and I don't understand how that's not crazy.
Southwest MN State, MN Rennaissance Fest, and Mall of America!
With two days off and time to kill, Jonathan and I hit up the Minnesota Renaissance Festival to do some mustache interviews. Jonathan's going to post his blog thoughts about the mustache experience later on, so I won't get into that, but we did see some other cool stuff there as well. One of my favorite sights was a dog-sized live tortoise harnessed with a tip jar that wandered through the faire grounds attended by two human minders. He liked having his neck rubbed. There was a giant rocking horse, jousting, and plenty of shows to see. The show that most impressed us was the Danger Committee! These guys do a knife throwing act where one of them actually catches the knife out of the air!!! Holy cow! I also enjoyed checking out some of the artists booths at the faire, especially Josh Boock, who makes cookie jars and mugs with grotesque faces. Right before we left, I took the Jacob's rope ladder challenge because I have beaten them before, but not on this day.
This photo gallery has some of the mustaches from our interviews, which you'll probably see again later.
On Monday we visited the Mall Of America for some retail shopping, and sight seeing. Other than the fact that this mall houses a small theme park, it's pretty much just a big mall. Jonathan bought a pretty slick jacket and some gifts for his wife, while I picked up a couple of pairs of new sneakers. I went to see the Bodiesexhibit which was showing for a limited time in one of the exhibition halls on the top floor. I'm glad I went, but I'm not sure I liked it. When we were at the Renaissance Festival, we were given passes for a free roller coaster ride in the Mall of America theme park. It was a good coaster, and free!
The show at Southwest Minnesota State University on 9/22 was a blast, and dinner afterwards with the activities crew was equally fun. One really cool highlight of this school was our interview on the school radio station, which was the first time that had ever happened to us.
Several girls at the college claimed to have camping gear and fishing tackle ready to go in their trucks, and the bait leeches are in their refrigerators. Minnesota girls, huh? Our new friend Candice filmed the show with her fancy video camera and promised to edit together some clips for us, so we're all looking forward to that.
Oh- I almost forgot to mention that at this show our front row was made up of bean bag chairs! It just seemed like a great idea that more college venues should use.
On Saturday the 19th, we appeared at St. Olaf College after a long but beautiful drive through the Iowa/Minnesota countryside. There are a couple of things worth talking about at this school the first of which is the venue. It was a rock-and-roll club with a sunken dance pit, balcony, and unexpected light trusses. At the college! Complete with tech booth! It was by far the most rock n' roll venue we have ever performed!
The other thing I have to mention is the students, who were dressed in ridiculous costumes. Aparently the St. Olaf swim team is known for being a little wild, and this day was a shining example of that. Parading through campus were cereal boxes, cows, and other various food related items, because on this day the swim team was dressing as their favorite foods. One of the more subtle costumes was the group dressed up as members of their rival schools. St. Olaf is also home to a band of Live Action Role Playing gamers (aka LARPers). Not only do these kids run around school grounds attacking each other with padded sticks (swards), they dress in full geek costumes depicting characters reminiscent of Final Fantasy. Peering out the window of the dining hall, I saw members of both groups begin to face off in the school's quad, and for a second, it seemed as if they would re-enact a fight scene from West Side Story, but instead they all lined up for a group picture. I'm disappointed I didn't have my camera to catch the goings- on; maybe next time.
St. Olaf is a wild place: we loved it there!
Oh yeah-and they had a Ms. Pac Man arcade game in the lounge, which Jonathan loves with an unholy passion.
We made the drive down to Illinois, to Monmouth College for the beginning of parents' weekend. The show was great. One unique thing that happened was that when I made fun of Jonathan's mustache, one of the moms in the audience came up on stage to make sure it was there. Because from a distance of about eighteen inches, it's invisible.
Jonathan is taking this two-week stretch of our tour to grow a mustache, and the results are pretty comical. He's been writing about it along the way, and those writings will wind up here on the blog at some point, so stay tuned.
We had a hard time with the sound system at this show; apparently there are ghosts in the system that don't like the sound of Jonathan's voice through a microphone. You won't hear any of our technical difficulties in the slideshow, though. We sound fantastic, take my word for it.
Our show at Saint Mary's University on 9/17 went exceptionally well. We were told that the turnout probably would have been better if it weren't for the fact that the season premiere of "The Office" was airing later that night. This is frustrating to us due to the fact that you can easily watch the show online later, for free, with fewer commercials at the NBC website. Oh well, what can we do? Even so, we were really happy with the people who did come out to see the show, and we all had a really amazing time, so those "Office" geeks just missed out!
I want to talk about the rental vehicle that we will be driving for the next two weeks of our tour. It's the GMC Elephant (which is actually named 'Sienna' by the auto company), and it's HUGE. I have never been behind the wheel of a vehicle this big before in my entire life, and I have to say it's pretty amazing. With three rows of seating, you can comfortably fit one tabloid reality TV show family and still have room for an Iditarod team of sled dogs in the cargo hold. You might have to put the sled on the roof, but it had cupholders for a dozen or more Big Gulps. Getting in and out of parking spaces is a serious challenge in this clumsy beast, but once you're on the highway, this baby opens up whole new worlds of power and class because driving this monster feels like piloting a slick space ship. Sitting comfortably in the command chair of this class SUV starship you are no longer effected by the gusty winds of nearby cargo freighters or area storms. There is no need to swerve in efforts of avoiding running over the inevitable graveyard of highway road kill, just power through it. You may faintly hear carcass parts thump briefly in the wheel well before disintegration, but the glass of ice water that the onboard robot poured you won't even ripple on the surface because the ride quality is just that smooth. Dual zone cimate control gave Jonathan and me the ability to put the passenger into a cryogenic freeze while the driver basked in perfect tropical temperatures while receiving a relaxing massage from a tiny personal shiatsu therapist seat warmer in the back of the chair. I think there are even individual climate controls for the people in the back seats!
Anyway, the car's pretty comfortable. If you need to reach Jonathan or me, the butler will bring the phone to us in the hot tub. If we can get the sled dogs out of it.
So, Jonathan and I got a day off. I spent the day with my mom and visiting my home town of Columbia, MO. Jonathan went home to Lancaster, PA, to see his wife and to see Bill Cosby live in concert. Because he is still live, Bill Cosby, but won't be forever.
On Sunday, we converged in Providence, Road Island, to perform the orientation night entertainment at RISD, which is supposedly the best design school in the world, although you wouldn't know it from the remarkably boring school hat they gave me.
So, Phil, the director of Residents' Life at RISD, picked us up from the Providence airport and gave us a short tour of the city on the way to the college, complete with colorful insights like the story of their Russian sub, which they converted to a museum, where U571 was filmed, and which sank one particularly rainy night; the most haunted street in the world, which was built on a graveyard after all the graves had been moved; Brown University, and Market Square, where they used to sell real live slaves. Phil also took us to a famous local hot dog eatery, Spike's. We declined the house's 6-dog eating challenge that, if successfully completed, puts your picture on the wall of fame for infinity or whatever. 6 of these dogs is a tall order. Or maybe I mean long order.
Now, RISD is special for more than its top-notch reputation as a design school. The mascot is a giant penis named Scrotie. Scrotie came into being a decade or so after the school's notoriously horrible intramural hockey team, humorously named "the Nads". We even received t-shirts from the school with the proud slogan "GO NADS!" Members of the team are not even required to know how to skate, and the school loses almost every game by embarrassing numbers. RISD does have one other intramural sports team, a basketball team named "the Balls", which supposedly loses most of its games by about 70 points. Art students are not known for their athletic prowess. From a student on the school's lawn, I also bought a student made RISD t-shirt which features Scrotie in a moment of excellence (see pictures).
Naturally, the show was amazing, which was fortunate, because a couple of special friends of mine came down from Burlington, Vermont, to see it, and it would have been a major shame if we had bombed.
We got some pretty awesome pictures of this show thanks to Amanda Chang, a student at RISD. Thanks, Amanda!
On Friday the 11th, we performed for the University of Science and Technology in Rolla, MO, where men outnumber the women 3 to 1. The poor engineering students that attend this rigorous college live in a sausage fest world full-time! But whatever, we had a great time and so did they.
The milestone of this event was that it was the first time we've performed the entire show with projector and everything in an outdoor venue. Oh, and my mom came down to see the show (I grew up in Columbia MO, just two hours away!). She's a proud mom. Insert your own 'Your Mom" joke here.
After the show, we went out with some of the students to a restaurant where one of them ordered something called a 'Nate Johnson'. It was a lovely concoction of grenadine and Mountain Dew. The student's name?
Northcentral Wisconsin Technical College, and heavy travel woes
So, from South Dakota we drove through the night in shifts until we arrived at the school at 7am on Thursday the 10th. We would have arrived earlier, but part of one of our highways was randomly closed for ten miles and we had to drive down a dirt road for a detour. We didn't actually have to check in with the school until 9:30, so we parked the rental SUV in an empty area of the parking lot and passed out. When we woke up, we were no longer alone in the parking lot, but surrounded by trucks you could haul horses with (pretty typical of tech schools).
So, we did our show and rocked it (of course!), and then we were off to the airport to fly to Missouri, the location of our next show. One fun thing about the show at Wisconsin Tech was that a criminal justice class got to come see the show instead of going to class, and they all came in wearing police utility belts, leather holsters- and blue plastic pistols. They were just like Glocks, only blue plastic, with no place for bullets. One guy shot me with his finger. I thanked him. It was really, really safe.
So, I want to take this time to talk about what life is like on the road and how our job is in fact a job. Of course we love what we do; every day we get to discuss and write new material, and then show off our work to adoring audiences. It's extremely rewarding to see the results of our efforts continuously develop, and it's been keeping us in the modest middle class. But it's not all fun and games!
On a typical day we take a flight that's scheduled for the hairy butt crack of dawn, and it doesn't smell good. We've gotten pretty good at dealing with airports, but there is still the occasional frustration (see the Augustana College post). Then we rent a car and drive to a hotel (which could be as much as four hours away), then drive again to the school, then perform the teaser, then set up for the show- including sound check- and then perform the show. After the show, we pack up (another half-hour to an hour, depending on how fast we're moving at that point), and then we spend some time with the people who hired us. It's all awesome- well, okay, sound check isn't all that awesome- but it's long days of work that start at 5am and end past midnight. Occasionally WAY past midnight.
Some people think that they envy us our travel, but we usually only see the inside of the hotel, the school auditorium, and the airport. Which, except for Detroit airport, pretty much look all alike. And when we do have down time, we spend it working at our computers, making sure that our shows are properly "advanced" (which means that we call ahead to our venue to make sure everything is cool at their end), our travel plans are properly booked, our promotional materials are up-to-date and exciting, and our Facebook status is current. Even writing this blog is part of my work day. Then there's the fact that we spend a lot of time away from home, our loved ones, and our pets. I (Evan) sometimes go into "cat withdrawal" and have to go visit a house with a cat in it, whether I know anyone there or not.
So there it is: we love our job, but despite what a lot of people believe, it's no vacation.
Northern State University South Dakota, and Getting Pulled Over
We performed a great show at Northern State South Dakota University on September 9th.
After the show we had to make an overnight drive so that we could make it to our next next show 8 hours away in Wisconsin (ugh). Since Northern State is in a town that's hours away from the nearest interstate, we had to drive down two lane highways through small towns and corn fields for hours and hours. On our way out of one of these towns I picked up my speed a little too fast. Now, in South Dakota the interstate speed limit is 75mph, and 70mph on the back highways. So on our back highways I set the cruise control to 77mph, and got up to speed a little too quick coming out of one of the towns. It really was an honest mistake that I was doing 77 in a 60. A long story short, I was nice to the officer and he let me off with a warning. While I was sitting in his squad jeep, I noticed an awesome assault rifle locked into a rack in the vehicle along with the standard shot gun. I asked if he was a member of the local SWAT team, and he said no, it's just standard issue in South Dakota.... Amazing.
So I'll take a moment to talk about how to deal with getting pulled over by the police. First thing you need to do is slow down, put on your blinker on, and look for a good place to pull over. Try to find a spot where you can get off the road far enough so the officer is safe. Next, roll your window down, put your keys on the dashboard, and put your hands on the steering wheel as he walks up to the car. Police officers have dangerous jobs, and they have to protect themselves because they never know who they are really talking too, so be polite and make sure they don't think you're about to grab a gun out of your pocket. Be fairly honest, but don't admit you knew you were speeding. When they tell you how fast you were going, just say something like, "huh". Other than that, just try to be respectful and cooperative. These tips won't always keep you from getting tickets, and some cops are just jerks, but I do believe it is important to respect their position. Above all else, just drive safely!
The Church Jonathan attends in Lancaster PA has a sister church on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and we volunteered to do a free show for their family night as a way of helping out.
Something I found interesting about the reservation church was how they incorporated Lakota culture, traditions, art and folklore into the decorations of the church. For example, paintings of Jesus and Mary depict them as Lakota tribes people, and the stations of the cross are mounted on round cuts of cedar wood, which is significant to Lakota traditions.
It was a fairly small audience at the show, but they laughed loud and hard, so it felt great to us! After the show we were each presented with gifts of beaded art from a local artist.
After the show, we acquired a taste for Lakota food with stew, fried Indian bread, and my new favorite food, Wojapi. Wojapi is basicly a pudding made with berries, and this one was made with buffalo berries, (a shrub grown berry that's bitter until there's been frost), the first in the season. It's served warm, and it's tart, and delicious!
Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota brought us in for their freshman orientation show on September 6th for what would be a rocking fun show. The audience loved us, and the student activities board members took us out for a really fun supper before the show.
A notable event on this day that had nothing to do with the school or the show was a problem with our transportation, specifically the airline known as "Air-Tran". I have a big blue and red prop case. I tour with it, and keep it on stage during shows and balance it on my face. This case was custom made to my specifications, and I took airline maximum size measurements into consideration when designing it. Despite these precautions, the Air-Tran ticket agent at BWI found a way to measure the case that added two inches to the size of the case, thus tacking on a $40 oversize baggage fee. As we were paying the fee I asked how she had measured it, and her response was a very hostile "We can argue about this all day or you can just pay the fee and get on with it". Now, what had happened with the measurements was that she'd measured the wheels and rubber pads that stick out from the box, which I hadn't considered that in my measurements, and all I was doing by asking was trying to confirm this; I was not trying to fight her. In over a year of flying with the case, this was the first time it's been a problem, and all I needed was to confirm what the problem was. I must admit that in response to her attitude I let loose a stream of language that would make a sailor proud. Seriously folks, at 5:30am, I don't need to take crap like that from the people I'm handing money to.
That's right, two shows at two schools in one day! A noon show at Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College and a late show at Ripon College.
Now, in the world of college entertainment, noon shows in the cafeteria are famously bad experiences for comedy performers. You have to take hits to your ego as people walk through the room ignoring you, and students ignore you in favor of reading their school materials, and hear background chatter. We need focus! But schools with commuter student bodies pretty much have to put on noon shows due to the fact that the entire campus leaves after class is over, and we would be performing to an empty room. You know the old zen saying about the tree falling in the forrest? Well, the same goes for a comedy show. If you tell a joke and nobody is around to laugh at it, is it funny?
Anyway, Jonathan and I have a unique skill skill set and background for dealing with this kind of problem because we are variety performers who have done street shows. We don't do the normal show with slides, and weird theatrical moments like Jonathan knitting a sweater in a matter of minutes; we mostly do a series of tricks, but it still has the essence of the SHOWOFF Show, and it's darn funny. We even throw in a couple of skills that aren't normally in the full show. Anyway, it was a good show.
And then we were off to Ripon College, home of the "Red Hawks". The students told us that the mascot doesn't have a name, and we all decided that the name should be "Rip". This show was pretty straightforward, which is good. Totally solid group of kids at this small liberal arts school!
Concordia University had us perform at their school on September 2nd, and of course the show was awesome. A unique highlight of the show involved Jonathan trying to ride a hand cart dolly like it was a Segway on stage, but that's not what I want to talk about right now. I want to talk about how our GPS unit makes us totally ignorant about where we are and what's around us. On the day of this show we flew in to Milwaukee, rented a car, and plugged the address of the school into the GPS. The GPS tells us where to turn when we need to turn, and nothing else. Back in the days before the world of GPS, Mapquest and Google maps, we all had to look at the atlas to figure out our directions, and in doing so, we would learn a lot about where we were and what was around us. As it was, on Wednesday we arrived at Concordia University and noticed a large body of water next to us. "Is that the ocean?" "No, it's a great lake... what lake is it?" "Must be lake Michigan, but I'm not sure." If we had taken the time to look at the atlas we would have known exactly what lake it was before we ever got anyplace near it, but as it was, we were surprised to see a lake there at all. So, even though the SHOWOFF Show! is now traveling more than ever, our geography knowledge has remained stagnant and probably even diminished because of our wonderful world of fancy information gadgets. Anyway, here are some pics from the show, including some pics of us next to the lake.
On August 31st the SHOWOFF Show! appeared at Chestnut Hill College on the outskirts on Philadelphia. It was a rare local(ish) show, and we cherish those. We performed at this school last year, but it wasn't a "SHOWOFF Show!" show, it was a "Jonathan Burns" show, and I (Evan) happened to be traveling along with Jonathan that day, so I made a cameo appearance and did a short juggling segment. It was a pretty memorable bit for me that night because there was a stray walkie-talkie sitting on the stage that kept talking to me asking where it was. Apparently some maintenance guy had forgotten it on the stage in the on position and decided that the best way to find it was to "call it". I talked back to the guy for a while, and it turned out to be a pretty funny incident. This year, the school decided to book the duo show and it was awesome. No walkie-talkie incidents this year, but the room we played in was interesting. Our "stage" was right in front of a large fireplace, and off to the side of the audience area was a huge long banquet table, the kind that seats 20 people, with big heavy fancy wooden chairs. I took the opportunity to balance on of those chairs on my chin during the show.
A little danger, a lot of comedy add up to 'The Showoff Show' By KATHLEEN DAMINGER, Staff Writer
Jonathan Burns was that kid at the family reunion with his hand in his armpit, flapping maniacally and cracking up at the vulgar sound.
"I kind of like the attention," he says.
Today he gets plenty of it performing on the stages of college campuses across the country as half of the comedy duo called The Showoff Show.
This weekend, they're bringing their show, which has been described as "Cirque du Soleil meets Saturday Night Live," to the showroom of the Lancaster Host Resort.
"We travel so much and we're all over the place," says Burns, who grew up in Johnstown but now lives in Lancaster.
"Sometimes it's one night in one state, the next night in another. We really wanted to do something for our friends in Lancaster."
Don't expect any armpit humor at this weekend's show, but there will be plenty of physical comedy.
Burns is somewhat of a contortionist. He manages to get into —and out of — some very tight spaces. He also enjoys magic, and has entertained peers with his tricks since his middle school days.
His partner, Evan Young, originally from Missouri, juggles a lot. But forget about balls and apples and such. He juggles things like fire and knives.
Together they interact with quick wit, knowing looks and circus-like timing.
"We usually tell people it's an interactive comedy show," says Burns. "There are elements of vaudeville, elements of sketch comedy, elements of standup. It's a blend of styles."
Joining the team at this hometown show are opener musician Mark DeRose, who according to Burns is a funny guy himself, and comic Jay Black, a former teacher turned stand-up comic from the Philadelphia area.
The performance is for ages 18 and over, but not because The Showoff Show isn't family friendly. It is. The showroom location and the serving of alcohol determines the age constraints.
Burns and Young have been performing together since 2006. The two met online when mutual interest in circus school got them chatting. Young had attended such a school in England. Burns, who had graduated from Millersville University with a major in art education, was interested in going.
Turns out Young talked him out of it, but the two ended up becoming friends and attending a conference together.
"People kept asking us if we worked together, because we had this sort of back and forth stuff going on," says Burns. "By the end of the weekend, we'd heard the question so many times, we said 'yes, we do."'
And they have since.
"I love to laugh," says Burns. "I guess it's another one of my hobbies. I've always been drawn to it and I love to make other people laugh.
"There's an optimism in me. I'm always excited and happy." LIVE in Lancaster 2009!
The SHOWOFF Show with Mark DeRose and comic Jay Black Fri. doors and drinks at 7:30 p.m. show at 8:30 p.m. 18 and over. $7 Lancaster Host Resort Showroom 2300 Lincoln Hwy. East, 299-5500 www.showoffshow.com
Saint Patrick's Day: Shamrocks, Leprechauns, Stand-up Comedians?!
This year's Saint Patty's day we got our "Potato Famine" on at the Detroit International Comedy Festival at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle. It was a day of firsts for us. Our first time performing in Detroit, first time performing at a comedy club, and our first time performing on the Irish holiday.
March 3rd was an Awesome show at Ferris State! Our good buddy Michael Kent picked us up from the airport the night before and we got to do another show together! We have pictures to show and Michael edited a couple videos to share. Enjoy!
The next video is posted on Facebook. To view it click here
We were asked to perform at the 2009 Detroit International Comedy Festival (We said "YES", obviously). We are on March 17, 2009, Best of the East Coast.
In the last week of January we logged two more shows into the SHOWOFF Show! archives. On Monday the 26th we performed at SUNY Plattsburg to kick off the first night of their "Freakin' Funny Comedy Carnival". Getting there was pretty special; we flew into Burlington VT, and then had to take our rental car across lake Champlaine on a ferry. The lake was totally frozen over except for the ferry path, which had so much floating ice that it looked like a drink.
On the ferry we noticed a license plate that could be interpreted a couple different ways; "paint it" or "pain tit"
The show was fun, and before the activities board got to launch rubber chickens and t-shirts at the audience.
Our second show of the week was on Friday at Grand Valley State University near Grand Rapids Michigan. This was our second year performing at their "Kids and Sibs Weekend", and it was a blast! We filled the house and it rocked!
On Jan 13, we logged our first show of the year at Mt Union College in Alliance OH. They booked us and our good friend Michael Kent on the same night, which is pretty fun for us. It happened to be the night before Michael's birthday, so we threw in a special little birthday bit into the show at the last minute.
The theater at Mt. Union is a beautiful old movie house with the original projector and some old movie reels still intact. While we were there they were in the process of updating it with a digital projector, and a nice surround sound system. Turnout to the show was decent even though it was snowing pretty hard outside, which made the walk to the theater a little slick.
After the show we all went out to dinner with the Mt Union activities board.
