Why ya buggin'

It's been hot here in LA the past few days. And with the heat has come more bugs than I'd previously seen here. Growing up in Dallas, I became fairly used to large cockroaches, to the point where I could kill them and not be too freaked out by it. But the other night I got home and saw a Texas-sized roach outside my apartment and for the next hour felt like bugs were crawling all over me. Oh, I know what you're thinking, and I wasn't on Meth at the time.

Last night I left my apartment and saw the fattest caterpillar I'd ever seen, on the same wall where the roach had been (again, thankfully outside). When I got home a few hours later, it had migrated a fair distance, and this morning I saw it down by my neighbor's window. I was actually relieved to see it again this morning, because the only thing worse than seeing the same bug (or whatever a caterpillar is) over and over is to not see it and wonder where it is now. Like in my bathtub or something.

I know, I know, caterpillars are cute and they become butterflies and blah blah, but this one just didn't have the appeal. Ok?

Well, from a comedic standpoint, I have to be happy that Hillary's still in this thing. Last week my former Second City castmate Brian Gallivan and I went to Chicago and filmed out scene "Killer" from the last show - the one where I play Hillary and he plays a reluctant assassin. The final edit is supposed to be done in the next week or so, and I'm glad that it will still be relevant then.

This week I'm traveling for some shows that Second City and the Economist magazine have teamed up to do. It's a cast of 5 of us - all SC alums now living in LA, and it's been a lot of fun. We were in Atlanta for the first show and now we're in Raleigh. We're doing three scenes from my last show (including Killer and my Al Gore song), so that's been a nice nostalgia trip. The other part of the show, which is called "The Art of Political Satire," is this guy who goes by the name of Kal and is a political cartoonist for the Economist. He's very nice and looks like Mark Twain. During the show he does a segment where he does some political caricatures and even teaches the audience how to draw President Bush. We'll do another show in San Francisco at the end of June.

Killing time

I love my shower radio. Why? Because it allows me to hear important news stories in the morning, the most important of which might be Los Angeles' current 48-hour homicide moratorium. That's right. In honor of the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, residents of the greater Los Angeles area are being asked not to kill anyone.

I believe it was one of Dr. King's finest speeches in which he proclaimed, "Consider not murdering anyone in two day chunks - it makes it less overwhelming."

The news story ended with this: "The homicide moratorium expires at 10:01pm tomorrow night."

And then, back to murdering!

Bringing you up to date

It's come to my attention that a lot of people have just recently come across my blog. I understand that those of you new Erdmaniacs may not be up for reading 3+ years of blog entries, so here's a quick rundown and hopefully answers to some FAQ's.

I started this blog in 2005 when I lived in Chicago and was preparing to embark on a 4-month cruise with The Second City. That was also around the time I began shooting Sonic commercials. Since then, I performed on The Second City Mainstage in Chicago for 2 1/2 years, after which I moved to Los Angeles. Hm, I guess that's really all there is to tell you. Except for one other thing, which is that this blog was initially started to keep my family and friends updated on what I was up to when I was on the cruise and communication was difficult. My parents continue to read this blog, so just keep that in mind should you choose to leave any, er, colorful comments.

Thanks for reading. And I do appreciate all the comments, even if I rarely respond to them.

Pearl of Wisdom

Jewelry. It's pronounced jewel-ry. Just like it's spelled. Not jew-lery. Unless of course you're talking about nuculear jewlery.