Seeing Friends Succeed

On August 24th when I performed at Notre Dame University's Opening Mass Picnic I had the pleasure of having dinner with my friend McKenna Pencak. She is the coordinator of International Student Activities at ND.

I got the change to ask her about her work at ND. It was so awesome to hear how excited she is about her new job. McKenna is one of my favorite people in the world and I am so happy to see her succeed.

Here is a pic of me and her being silly, enjoying some comedy magic and enjoying our eyebrows.

I look at my circle of friends and I see how blessed I am to be around so many talented and hard working people. None of us right now are millionaires or are house hold names but each of them is doing really exciting stuff.

My friend Geoff designs the web interface for one of the nation's biggest retailers. My Girlfriend Erin is making costumes for a nationally renowned theatre company. My friend Jason is directing all over Chicago for some of the leading edge theatre companies. Of course if any of my other friends are reading this and I haven't mentioned you it's only to keep this brief.

So I say, soldier on my friends. We will take over this place one gig at a time.

Namaste.

Ooo No, not the Italian Silk

Saturday night I was performing for an adult birthday party. It was a great crowd of very successful 30somethings enjoying good food, a few drinks, and my show. If you have seen my show you know that one of my signature effects involves "accidentally" skewering an audience member's jacket with a big 8 inch pair of scissors. You can see a clip of it here: Comedy Magic.

In August in Chicago most people don't wear suit coats. But Saturday night I had a great one. I brought the Gentleman up and already he was a bit suspicious because he had seen the rest of the show. As I helped he off with his coat I knew I was in for a fun ride. It was the softest, nicest, sports coat I had ever seen. So on with the magic. When the scissors penetrate the coat I ask the volunteer if he knows any magic words. He says, "I'm thinking of a word!" Big laughs.

I love it when my volunteers write the jokes for me.

Reviews, Gorillas, Irish, and Car pools

My comedy magic show at the Gorilla Tango theatre is charging ahead with some awesome audiences. I've had three reviews published and they couldn't disagree more! I know all three reviewers were at the same show because I saw them there. Let's just say the one review was so bad I am not even going to link to it here. The second one was a good review (check out the Wicker Park Pipeline) and the third was such a glowing review I'm a bit embarrassed. Ok, I'm not that embarrassed. Check out the review at Making Chicago Home.
As of this writing I have two more performances, August 26 and September 2 at 8:00 PM. So, if you want to get out and have some laughs pop over to the Gorilla Tango site and pick up some tickets. I have a distinct feeling that September 2 is going to be sold out because all of my procrastinating friends will be buying tickets that night.
Today I am heading off to the Eastern Time Zone. That's right I'm going one hour into the future. I will be performing my strolling comedy magic at the Notre Dame Opening Mass Picnic. I did this event last year and it is tons of fun. The folks at ND are great hosts.
Until next time friends, Na mas dei.