Categories
Enjoyed

Del Close Marathon 8 Wrapup

In total, I spent 14 hours at the 8th Annual Del Close Improv Marathon. I took in 26 shows across two days, and as can be expected, that much improv leads to one being a bit overloaded. It is hard to look back over that much hilarity and remember individual bits, suggestions given, scenes edited, etc.

But with that said, here are my best attempts at something resembling awards. I should note that these distinctions are only for the shows I saw – I am unable to praise that which I was not in attendance for. The 26 shows were (in chronological order): Kid Dervin, Death League Tea Party, Asia-Town, Neely O’hara, Pax Romana, Rogue Elephant, B-Roll, Primal Bias, I Eat Pandas, Mister Diplomat, Delaney & Merrit: Omlette Vision, The Upright Citizens Brigade, The Academy, Krompf Breakfast, The Improvised Mystery, Ugly Stick, Pearl Brunswick, Flux Capacitor, KNC, Dr. Fantastic, BirdDog, Scheer-McBrayer, The Swarm, Fivesome, MySpace, and Walsh & Roberts.

I should also note that I’m effectively giving one award to every group I really enjoyed. This isn’t to say the ones that didn’t get awards weren’t enjoyable (although a few were not), but these were the real standouts.

BEST TRADITIONAL IMPROV GROUP

The Swarm
What can be said about the veterans? Fast paced, great teamwork, and even a bit of wall breaking. Semantic arguments have never been so much fun. It’s a damn shame they don’t perform anymore.

BEST NON-TRADITIONAL IMPROV GROUP

I Eat Pandas
Mark my words: Glennis, Eliza, and Travis are going to be – if somehow they are not already – the next huge act out of NYC.

BEST CHAOS

Upright Citizens Brigade
Besides the previously mentioned accident: there was trying to jump the cooler over a ramp constructed out of plywood and Ian Roberts. There was Matt Walsh destroying a chair for no reason. There was a six person beer drinking contest. There was a two person banana eating contest, which had a fight on the cooler in the middle of it. There were scenes with nazis and six year old girl hockey pucks.

BEST BREAKFAST

Krompf Breakfast
Fresh bacon, lots of OJ, bagels, eggs with scallions, and unlimited Bloody Mary refills? KROMPF! Also, the improv was good too!

BEST USE OF GIMMICK

Flux Capacitor
Flux revisits the same situation from multiple locations. It worked better than I expected, with some great running jokes and unintended hilarity.

BEST TWIST ON THE FORMULA

Dr. Fantastic
Inspiration used for horrible jokes, and then doing scenes off of those? WHAT A TWIST! No, seriously, it was a good twist.

BEST AURAL JOLT

The Pearl Brunswick
Nothing will make you pay attention like five gifted women singing with all their might.

BEST MORNING IMPROV TEAM

Asia-Town
Out of all the morning teams I saw, Asia-Town ran away with my personal laugh count. Given that I was groggy as shit at that time, this says something.

BEST SEMANTIC ARGUMENT

Walsh And Roberts
Is sour cream a garnish? They argued for 15 minutes, and I’m still not entirely sure.

THE JEN MALINSKY AWARD

(given to one performer who stands out across multiple groups, as Jen did last year)

Tim Curcio – holy shit, he was everywhere, and he was great! Go Tim!

Categories
Found

Possibly My Oddest Anecdote Ever

Tonight, Katie was struck by a motorized cooler – twice

“Full” Del Close recap (at least for the shows I’ve seen) coming tomorrow night.

Categories
Debated Disliked

With Power Comes Great Mediocrity

First: yes, we finally have our power back, as of this morning. The cable, which made its own outage in fear of not getting enough of our attention, is also back. Thanks to everyone who sent us well-wishes, and particular thanks to Jen & Jay for putting us up for the weekend so we could pretend as though we were a part of society.

As the dust begins to clear, and fingers begin to point towards those who should shoulder the blame, [it was only a matter of time](http://ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=61233) until Mediocrity reared its ugly head:

> As power is slowly being restored in Northwest Queens, the mayor says embattled Con Edison CEO Kevin Burke should not only keep his job, but that he deserves a pat on the back from New Yorkers, much to the surprise of Queens lawmakers.

> “I think Kevin Burke deserves a thanks from this city. He’s worked as hard as he can every single day since then, as has everybody at Con Ed,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference Monday. “It’s easy to go criticize, but once this happened, Con Ed has been doing everything they can to bring it back.”

> Assemblyman Michael Gianaris and City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. — who believe Burke should be fired — were visibly stunned by the mayor’s comments.

In a way, Bloomberg is right. It *is* easy to criticize.

It’s easy to criticize a public utility company that gives counts of blacked-out subscribers based on the number of people who call to complain, rather than any real metric.

It’s easy to criticize a CEO that doesn’t apologize until the fifth day of the outage.

It’s easy to criticize workers who have been reported as sleeping on the job, hooting at women, and – in my own personal experience – reading books on Seamanship when they should be fixing the grid.

It’s easy to criticize a governor who refuses to declare a disaster area when over 100,000 people were without power for nearly a week.

It’s easy to criticize a claims program that only allows business claims for food spoilage, thus denying all businesses who don’t deal in perishable goods any immediate relief for their inability to be open.

Beyond all else, it’s easy to criticize a mayor who refuses to hold anyone accountable for the longest blackout in New York City history.