Rance Rizzutto

The Beatbox! Hip hop improv Saturdays and midnight at iO Chicago starting June 26th.

Admittedly, I’m trapped. Mentally trapped in an era not so far gone, but far enough. Somewhere around graduating high school I never grew up. In some respects I have, but I still have that youthful outlook on life at times.

Then…not too long ago, just a matter of weeks…it hit me. “I think I’m done with witty t-shirts.”

I’ve been a fan of witty tees for a long time. If not witty, then at least in support of things that I found pleasing. Two t-shirts instantly came to mind from my youth: Opus the penguin from the Bloom County comic strip; and a shirt that made it look like I was wearing a fish as a neck-tie. ComedySportz cities around the world make their own t-shirts to sell (most of them) and I’ve owned my fair share of those. I went through my Dragonball-Z phase, my Engrish.com phase (Hot Space Station Justice!)…I’ve owned plenty of witty shirts.

While we were in Hawaii, in a Target, I saw a great retro shirt: King Ding Dong. It had those words with the character. Hostess used to have characters for every product. Twinkie the Kid and such. Some are still around, but King Ding Dong suffered the fate of dessert democracy and was thrown from his throne. This Target store, however, did not have my size. Over time I saw the same shirt in multiple Targets, never in my size. But, once we got back to Chicago I FOUND IT! SCORE!

Hell yeah! I’m in my King Ding Dong shirt!

But just a week or so ago, right after the ComedySportz Championship, I realized something. Deanna wanted me to pick her up from a reading she was doing, so I did. As I drove to the location and found a parking spot I had this thought go through my head, “Oh, shit. I’m wearing my ding dong shirt.”

I sat in the car and waited about 10 minutes. Partly because I didn’t want to pay for the meter and only needed to wait until 9pm to avoid that. Partly because of my shirt.

Text messages sent and no sign of Deanna, I got out of the car and headed in. And this is kind of what sealed the deal. She was talking to a couple people and said she had to go. They said “is this him?” and introduced themselves and we made our way home.

“Is this him?” Deanna writes fantastic stories and does live readings in various venues, mostly with This Much Is True. The story she told that night was about us being on a ship when the abandon ship alarm goes off and my main goal is getting her (and myself) to our station to get on a life boat if need be. By the end of her story I am literally labeled her “hero.”

“Yep, I’m him. I’m the hero. Me. King Ding Dong.”

Sorry, witty t-shirts, your chapter is over.

A correlation between leaving different experiences…based on the Blue Man Group phenomenon (and maybe the Office Olympics episode of the US version of The Office).

If you read my A Week In Philly post you know a little bit about the experience and how it can relate to drug addiction, or just addiction in general. Today I was chatting with a good friend (met at, and almost exclusively seen and CSz Championships over the years) about various things. She will be leaving very soon to work on a cruise ship and I was giving what I thought was good advice and a comparison to non-ship life. It turned out it was a fairly good comparison to the Championship as well and she said “I smell a blog post.”

I was mainly trying to describe how I perceived relationships between crew members on a ship. Of course, I’ve always been with Deanna on the ships, but that almost gives me better perspective because I can see it all unfolding in front of me without being caught up in it.

Basically I said that relationships are almost guaranteed to happen on ships. Working 4-8 months on a cruise ship can be a little stressful at times, and lonely if you’re single…and VERY lonely if you’re not single but your significant other is not on the ship. This also means you’re surrounded by other crew who are going through the same stress meaning you have a major part of your life in common…you can both relate in understanding the stress. Add that to cheap drinks in the crew bar and boom…relationship.

That part is easy. Blue Man (and maybe that Office episode) come into play at the end of your contract…when you come back to real life.

If you haven’t seen Blue Man Group, you should. I’ve seen it at least four times and I love it. The Chicago theater also used to be on the way to the old ComedySportz theater so I would see this phenomenon all the time.

The Blue Man Group show is an experience that unifies the audience in that “We all just experience this together! We are all the same!” kind of way.

SPOILER ALERT

At the end of the show multiple rolls of slightly-stronger-than-toilet-paper are hit by air from fans and the paper makes its way toward the stage over the heads of the entire audience. It is a LOT of paper, covering the audience like a blanket. What? There is PAPER coming from the WALL! It is very exciting.

For whatever reason, about 75% of the audience gets compelled to wear the paper. Scarves, headbands, ties, belts, bandoleers, blindfold type masks…it is FUN! Just like relationships on a ship are fun. We’re all in the same boat (pun intended) together so these paper outfits are perfectly acceptable.

And then…the show is over. The audience leaves. A majority outside the theater waiting for cabs to whisk them out of this fanciful journey and back to the reality of their lives. Lives that don’t include most of the people in the audience. From an outside perspective the astute passerby may catch it…one person wistfully removes their paper headband. This might make someone else self-conscious…they undo their rough Windsor knot and a would-be tie finds its way to the trash.

My point being, when you’re in a relationship…ON a ship, and the ship is all you have in common you may be hit with the reality of a paper headband when you leave. Quickly going from “this is the best!” to “what the hell am I going to do with this thing?”

But sometimes…sometimes it was more than that. It relates to the Championship in that way for a lot of people this time around. As I put it while chatting, maybe it IS time to take off the headband, but this one might get folded up and put in a wooden box with a plastic-encased scorpion that my dad killed near my crib (as a baby, not near my “rapper house”), my great-grandfather’s fancy cigar lighter, and other memories. And instead of going with a few friends, we went with a field trip and actually knew more of the people that shared the experience.

Separate occasion…and more in line with The Office. The particular part of the episode I’m thinking of (spoiler alert?) is when Michael comes back, the office games stop, and Ryan almost instantly throws away his medal (a metal yogurt lid on a paperclip chain necklace). In his interview video he said he figured he could wait and throw it away later or just do it then. This is how I felt leaving the ship in Hawaii. We had a few leis that we had acquired. I only saved the one my dad made, and others were saved by Deanna. What am I going to do in real life with these?

I don’t have a great way of wrapping this one up. Sometimes paper is a memory in a box. Sometimes you wipe your butt with it.

I’ve been performing for ComedySportz off and on for a while now. Since 1999.

Lately Deanna and I have been discussing different things about improv. Namely, why do people continue to perform in many various theaters around Chicago for next-to-no pay, and more than likely exactly-no pay? It’s a drug, that is why. The high you get from going into a situation where you have no memorized scripts, yet you have to sustain an audience’s interest for 20-90 minutes depending gives you a rush. Even more so if it goes over big.

So, why do I jump from talking about CSz to talking about drug addiction? Because once a year CSz has a World Championship where all the 20+ cities with CSz teams send representatives to a chosen location to battle it out for the Meaningless Cup™! AND…this is like traveling to a place that is Jamaica, Colombia, and Amsterdam wrapped together in that you get a huge improv high.

This year was in Philadelphia, PA and it was a huge rush.

It is always a special situation at the Championships because you’re not just performing, you’re hanging out with people who do the same type of show, people who are in your ensemble that you might not spend much time with in normal life, and everyone gets the opportunity to take workshops on various topics. Major hang-time means everyone is really close by the end. Family.

Also like drugs, getting torn away cold turkey kinda sucks.

So, to help with rehab, here is a list of bits that only a few people will get:

-Just think…tits.
-Rrrrrrrap Battle (?!)
-pyow pyow I’m
-I think I’m thinking of cockroaches
-I think I’m thinking of antelopes
-Gaudety gonna start
-”[the problem was] I was only dating locals.” boooooooo…”I’m from Jersey”…oh! yayyyY!

To everyone that saw me perform, liked what I did, and was kind enough to come up and introduce themselves, thanks. I’ve been doing this awhile and I appreciate the kind words. I try to keep it fresh for the people who’ve been doing it a lot…mostly for my own amusement.

To everyone who didn’t introduce yourself, you should have; who I didn’t introduce myself to, I’m sorry; who I HAD been introduced to and then reintroduced myself to after forgetting, whooa…sorry…I can only think of two people off hand.

And lastly, to the concept “quiet coyote”…I will hunt you.

Now it is time for rehab, then back to casual use. Hopefully I’ll be there when it all happens again next year.

The Beatbox! Hip hop improv Saturdays and midnight at iO Chicago starting June 26th.