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 2002.09.29 EPISODE 4, in which I see the shit out of it
ocializing is hard work and there's much of it to be done these days. Saturday was both the Muckrakers' potluck and the Mr. Show "Hooray For America" tour. The potluck, to which probably two dozen J-schoolers showed up, was a much classier affair than one might expect. Granted, it wasn't objectively that classy -- the punch was in a new giant bucket from Target, after all -- but it was far and away more than you'd get from a bunch of undergrads. People actually went out of their way to make real food. And the department bought booze, which was a nice bonus. Sharon was in town for the Mr. Show show so she came with me but first we had to visit some thrift stores to look for pieces for her Anna Nicole Smith costume. Wigs, trashy dresses, the like. Apparently people are dumping old record and Kodak Instamatic cameras at these stores like they're plague-carriers. I bought Tapestry on vinyl for 99¢ and it seems to be in terrific condition other than the ancient piece of masking tape on the sleeve. What they don't have so much of is Anna Nicole costuming, however. It was about this time that we were driving past the Barrymore Theatre on the way to one of the thrift shops. Just as I was pointing it out, I saw none other than Bob Odenkirk and David Cross -- the titular Bob and David of "Mr. Show with Bob and David" -- going into the new age herb and vitamin shop next door. So, of course, we swung around the block, parked at the restaurant across the street and followed them in. Sharon said she couldn't believe we were dorks but, you know, I could. When we got inside we sort of milled about and watched what was going on. Bob was close to the door, idly looking at wicker baskets while David comparison shopped for some kind of granola lotion. It made me feel strangely powerful to realize that, when Bob pulled out his credit card, I could have grabbed it and just run like hell. I guess I'll just have to settle for this trumping my Gilbert Brown encounters in the celebrity rundown. After we were done being dorks, we headed over to campus for dinner, drinks and discussion. When the crowd began to dwindle, somebody suggested we play Pictionary on one of the chalkboards. This meant a lot of back and forth from the rules committee about just how we'd structure the game; it was the most gradtastic Pictionary game I've ever been involved with. It was fun, though, because we all appreciate good wit and none of us is too proud to run a joke into the ground. We were going to meet some of the folks at the Crystal Corner between the potluck and Mr. Show -- somebody's band was playing, apparently -- but the $7 cover made us think twice. That's wicked steep even if we were going to stay for more than an hour, which we weren't. So, naturally, we checked out the nearby tattoo parlor and then went to the adult entertainment superstore. Sharon was hoping they'd have some Anna Nicole-type accessories, which they didn't. They did have a helpful clerk who was ready and willing to explain the differences between the various male genital desensitizers, however. Most professional damn porn store worker I've ever seen, he was. So then it was on to the theatre. We got there at 9:30 for a 10:30 show and the line was already wrapped back around to the Mr. Show tourbus; we watched Brian Posehn and John Ennis sign autographs while we waited. And then the rain came and they still didn't let us in. We had to stand out in the wetness for a good 20 minutes before the line began to move. Once we did get inside, everything was pretty orderly, considering it was a sold-out show. The crowd was obviously made up of big Mr. Show geeks, as every in-joke wink and reference was greeted with roaring applause; when David came on as Ronnie Dobbs I thought the place was going to explode. It was a pretty terrific show; most of the material was new and the recycled stuff had been updated. Some audio problems came up -- as they have on other shows, from what I've read -- but the cast rolled with it, skillfully ad libbing when necessary. It looked like they were filming it, too, so hopefully there's a DVD release in the planning. So Saturday made for quite a week. Really made me feel like a grad student. Aaron Veenstra is the managing editor of Etc. House Productions and a Master's student in Journalism at the University of Wisconsin. |
