This has been a pretty good week, overall. It has felt long, which is why I say “week” even though it’s only Wednesday. Work has been a bit slow, but only because I’ve chosen it to be that way. I had a great dinner at Dad’s last night. He made Chinese food. Of course, we just call it food. I had been craving it for a long time, especially since France and Toronto’s Greek Town are not the best places to get it. We had chicken curry, Chinese broccoli (we just call it.. nevermind), and roast pork. Yum. Dad’s a fantastic cook. I learned my love of food and cooking from him. Afterwards we just sat and talked for about three hours. Usually we turn on the TV and talk during commercials, but we didn’t feel like it. We talked about travel, and family, and cars, and sports, and food, and usual Kev/Dad stuff. A totally enjoyable evening.

I got some emails from old friends whom I haven’t spoken to in years, like my university roommate Chandler, and my camping buddy Dennis. I’d kind of lost touch with these guys over the years, but I know that when we get together to hang out, it will be just like old times. All of us have had major changes in our lives since last we met, but deep down we’re each the same as we were back then. That’s how it’s always been. I can’t wait to meet up and catch up.

I heard part of an interview with Atom Egoyan about his new film, which is done in a film noire style. He’s a very complex dude, and talked about wanting to create the film noire style without lampooning or caricaturing it. He also talked about how he likes to play up on the tension between what you can see and what is beyond your realm of perception. He described the film The Matrix as being a very simplistic illustration of this concept, and that he prefers a more subtle approach. For instance, exploring the difference between people’s public and private personas, and how everyone has this divide, but some people go to great lengths to hide it. Interesting.

Other than that, I’m just adjusting to “normal” life again. After traveling and the improv festival, things are depressingly plain again. It’s not intolerable, but I sure feel the craving to be on a plane or exploring some mysterious city again.

How to see Paris in under nine minutes.

The end is beautiful.

Is there anything more ridiculous than a 200 lb. woman riding a miniature motorbike powered by a chainsaw motor? At the very least, there is little that is more annoying. The man and wife at 100 Garfield love to bomb up and down the street, perched atop their miniscule motorcycles like clowns in the centre ring of some fleabag circus. The noise is like that of a mosquito convention under a bullhorn. It makes it almost impossible to have any peace and quiet around here. I guess this is what trashy people do instead of having jobs, since when they’re not riding their little bikes, they’re slouching on the porch yammering into cell phones, smoking and drinking beer. My only comfort is that they don’t wear helmets, so it’s possible that a misturn or an unexpected pothole might cause natural selection to kick into action. I’m highly tempted to throw a stick into their tiny spokes to give nature a foot up.

The improv festival was amazing fun. I had a great time in Toronto, both performing and shooting. The first BIJ set was at 10am on Saturday morning, which was a tough time slot. Some of the team had been at the theatre all night for the marathon, playing in the open jams and stuff. It’s amazing everyone’s eyes were open for the 10am set. We managed to get through it though. It wasn’t the best show we’ve ever done, but it was still entertaining.

My second set was Asshat Posse with Nada at 11:30am. We didn’t have much of a plan going in, just to play it slow and real and to edit organically. I think it went very well. Our biggest laughs were from a scene in which we talked about tits and ass a lot. Oh well. High brow improv doesn’t work well that early in the day I guess. A couple people came up later and told me they enjoyed the realistic characters and relationships, and the organic edits, so I guess mission was accomplished.

I was very happy with the Crazy Eights set, especially considering we had a few new players on board. It didn’t take much explaining to get everyone on board, and we basically got everything organized about 15 minutes before we hit the stage. I’d encouraged bench players to initiate hard and fast and they did so very enthusiastically. My other goal was to give the scenes time to develop, and avoid gags and cheap jokes. That kept the pace of the show very quick, but also allowed some character development and exploration. Not too bad for a show that has been on hiatus for a year.

Sunday’s BIJ show was good too. It was at 6:30pm, winding up towards the end of the marathon. There was a full house, and that really helped our energy, I think. The 25 minutes seemed to fly by, and when the lights were pulled, I was quite surprised. It had only felt like maybe 15-20 minutes. Maybe that’s a good sign? I don’t know. In any case, I think it went pretty well.

In between performing, I was doing a lot of shooting. Stage shooting is a lot like outdoor shooting. You’re really at someone else’s mercy for lighting. It puts me in a whole different frame of mind. Although I wish I could have more control over which lights go where and how bright, it’s kind of refreshing sometimes to give the reigns to someone else and just follow their lead. I did have to push the camera pretty hard though. I shot at minimum ISO400 and sometimes had to bump up to ISO800. I had the image stabilizer turned on all the time, because I was usually shooting at 1/80 at 200mm.

Having Olya around for the weekend to help with the shooting was a major load off of my shoulders. It saved me tons of running around, and let me concentrate on work and stuff earlier on in the week. It’s really great to know there’s a talented photographer helping me out so I don’t have to worry about the quality of the work. It’s a major bonus that she’s so energetic and enthusiastic all the time too. Thanks Olya!

All of the fun made it a bit easier to take the bitter part of the weekend. Emeril fell victim to random crime early on Sunday morning. Culver’s neighbour woke me up at about 8am to tell me that Emeril and Culver’s truck had both been burglarized. She had heard the noise and come out to find the guy crawling around inside my car. She shouted at him and he took off on his bike. I spent the next couple of hours giving the police all the details I could.

You can see the forensics officer going all CSI on Emeril in the background. They took some digital pictures, but didn’t dust for prints. The other cop said I didn’t want them to dust for prints because it makes a “fucking mess.” I probably won’t hear anything more about this, even if they catch the guy. The cop described him as a “crackhead nobody.” I felt really fortunate that I had brought all of my camera equipment and laptop in for the evening so I could work on the photos in the morning. Otherwise, all of the festival photos would have been lost, and I’d have some major headaches replacing the camera gear through insurance. As you can see, though, my shirts got a bit stomped by the perp as he went through the car looking for valuables. In the end, I lost about $5 in change, and had to pay $270 to repair the window.

Now, at least for a few weeks, life returns to normal… whatever that is. Plus, Hesi’s back! Welcome home Hesi!

Wow I’m tired. There was tons of work to do this week. Things seemed to take longer than they should, and a bit of jetlag that hit me around Wednesday made it feel much later than it really was. But, I’m really excited about this weekend. I’m going to be shooting the Toronto Improv Festival. I already started by shooting the show at the Second City last night. I’m also performing in four shows:

• Big in Japan - 10am Saturday at the Bad Dog Theatre
• Asshat Posse - 11:30am Saturday at the Bad Dog Theatre
• Crazy Eights - 4:30pm Saturday at the Bad Dog Theatre
• Big in Japan - 6:30pm Sunday at the Bad Dog Theatre

I’m pretty excited about all of these sets. Asshat Posse should be fun. It’s me and Nada, who hasn’t played in a long time, but she’s naturally awesome so I’m not worried. I haven’t done a two-hander (duo set) in quite a long time, but I remember it being challenging and fun.

I’ll be staying in Toronto all weekend, absorbing the improv goodness. Culver gave me the key to his house because he’s out of town this weekend, so I have a place to crash at night and between sets. Nada’s going to hang out with me tonight at Culver’s so we can get synced up for our show in the morning. Check out the pictures from last night here.