mikefotis.com

I Will Never Write About Golf Again…Until I Do.

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 | Solo Show Stuff, Sports | 6 Comments

Happy Tuesday!

1. The Skirt Turtles won their first game of the Summer schedule. Man, we really played well last night. Aside from what is becoming known as “the fifth inning curse”, in which everything that can go wrong, does, we are turning into a real ball club. What’s that odor? It’s sweet. It smells like victory.

2. “Why would I want to read a blog about a guy watching golf on TV?”-Jimmy Gaines 6/16/08. I have no idea, Jimmy. But I appreciate your readership. I really do. Tomorrow I promise to tell the story of some obscure band from the 70’s that no one’s ever heard of, and how with a few breaks that never happened, they would have been bigger than the Stones. I promise.

3. I am in full fledged writing mode right now. Fringe, BNW, videos, bills, letters, you name it. If it needs writing, you can bet I’m writing it. Hillary dropping out of the race has added a whole lot of clarity to my writing for the upcoming BNW show. Sure, she was the easiest target out there and I’m a little sad that I’ll have to wait to use some of my better pantsuit jokes, but I’m going to go glass half full on this one and say that it’s better this way. Maybe after years and years in the spotlight Hillary was getting too easy to poke fun at. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

As for the Fringe show, it continues to putter along. I really just need to pick some stories and then write them. Ugh. Just ugh.I don’t know why in my head I’ve decided that the show needs to 3 longish stories. There’s no reason to do it that way just because that’s what it was last year. I could do 5 less longish stories and still be just fine. Good Lord, me. You are a pathetic non-deciding fuck tart*.

4. Al Franken is a short, short man.

Mike

*I really hope Tiger Woods says that to himself right before (or after) a big putt. There, I got a little more golf in there. Ha.

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What Else?

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 | Site News, Solo Show Stuff, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Happy Wednesday!

Not much to report here in Chicago-ish.

I watched one episode of the John Adams HBO mini series. Wow, he was a cantankerous fellow!

What else? My Dad takes 5 minutes to decide what kind of OJ to buy.  In the end, he settled for “some pulp.”

What else? No one in my family can hear. Last night we went out for a tasty meal in a sort of loud restaurant and heard nothing that the person next to us had to say.

What else? My nephew is fascinated with ceiling fans.

What else?  Hillary has finally crossed the line to pathetic. I know this happened for most of you months ago, but wow, pick a side lady.  The whole “I’m not conceding, but I’ll take the VP” angle is really sad.

What else? Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel, No Reservations, might be my favorite show. It’s pretty great. Funny, uncouth, raw, in your face and surprisingly empathetic. Kind of like an evening out on the town with yours truly.

Look, I could bore you with my fascination surrounding the strange boom my home area has undertaken in the past ten years and the curious class re-definition that is taking place, but I doubt you care. I’m not even sure that I do. So how about this? Let’s call today a wash.  In fact, if you’re looking for an interesting read, check out David Brusie’s City Pages interview with Mike Mills of REM, here.  Or, if you put the mania in “Obama-mania”, check out Josh Eakright’s blog about last night’s little shindig in St. Paul, here.

Punch Out and Night Driving

Friday, May 30th, 2008 | Plugs, Solo Show Stuff | 3 Comments

Happy Friday!

Punch Out

Last Punch Out. Tonight. 11pm. Brave New Workshop. This is a great way for you to see some awesome improv and support the Twin Cities Improv Festival. Five Man Job vs Ferrari McSpeedy. It’s going to be a bloodbath.

Night Driving

Immediately after the Saturday showing of Old Enough To Know Better (Have you been to see it yet? Check it out! 730pm.) I will be hopping in my car and heading to Chicago.  The drive from MPLS to CHGO is boring enough with daylight. Taking that away and replacing it with night will be kind of a drag. On the plus side, I’ll have plenty of time to…think.  Thinking’s fun. Nothing wrong with thinking. Nope, not one damn thing. Maybe I’ll think my way into a finished Fringe show and 10-20 sketches about the upcoming presidential election. I “mind write” a ton of stuff while on long car trips. If only I had a printer that took what was in my brain and put it instantly to paper. God, that would be sweet.

Talk to you soon?

Mike

Softball Failure and Fringe Gardening

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 | Solo Show Stuff, Sports | 4 Comments

Happy Tuesday!

Softball Failure

Well, the regular season (Spring Session) is over. We’re 2-4. I’m not gonna lie to you, I wanted to finish .500. I’m not sure that any theater softball team has ever achieved such a gaudy record and I sure as snot wanted to be associated with such a feat. I would have put it on my resume.  We didn’t play poorly yesterday. In fact, we played almost OK, but the other team played a little bit better.  We have the playoffs coming up in two weeks, but before I focus on that, I want to look back on the season that was.

*After weeks of speculation between the two, Josh Eakright proved that he was indeed faster than Joe Bozic through the time honored spectacle of the after bar footrace. Jason Bidnas finished 3rd in our race and gave both Joe and Josh a run for their money.  Yours truly brought up the rear, ending weeks of speculation on my part that I was the slowest of the three.  I love after bar races. They are the heights of male showmanship.

* Joe Bozic is the Lou Piniella of Co-ed recreational softball.  The man’s a screamer and demands results. I am also totally impressed with his ability to manage our 30 person roster. That, my friends, is no small task.

*Softball is the most brilliantly fun game in the history of mankind. I love it, and truly hope we sign up for the summer session.

Fringe Gardening

It’s coming along. I’m trying to have the whole thing done by this weekend.  That way I can maybe preview it a couple of times. That would be nice.  I’ve done a lot of writing in my head while gardening. Turns out the frustration of dandelions really spurs my creative juices. That might be the key.

Morning Of Triumph, Fringe Show

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 | Solo Show Stuff, Sports | 7 Comments

Happy Tuesday!

Morning Of Triumph

I woke this morning unable to bend my right knee and unable rotate my right ankle. My lower back may no longer exist. It certainly isn’t handling the weight of my upper body as per usual. My head is throbbing and my sinuses are completely shut. Some of this is because I fell asleep on a futon last night. Some of it is because I’m allergic to everything that nature has to offer. But most of it has to do with Co-ed recreational league softball, which I am pleased to announce found the Skirt Turtles dancing in the victory column for the first time.  Oh God, winning is so much better than losing. Sorry kids, but your little league coaches lied to you. The euphoria of actual victory FAR outweighs the wisdom found in moral ones.

The game last night was a ton of fun and over the past few weeks the team has seen some real improvement, which makes the games far more interesting to play. We have one more game left in the Spring schedule. If we win, we will finish 3-3*, shocking our critics and laying the foundation for several years of championships.

Fringe Show 

Serious brain freeze happening here. I don’t have writer’s block as I have plenty to write about, but I am having trouble starting any of the stories. I’m running into two problems:

1. Do I necessarily want all of the stories to be autobiographical? Probably. Ok, so I just solved that problem, but I do have one more problem, which is:

1-a. I am unable to write a simple story. I keep trying to cram a message into it, which seems kind of forced and icky. Or, I keep trying to tie my story, which for argument’s sake is about screwdrivers, to some larger theme. For example, I tell my amusing tale about screwdrivers and college and then try to tie it into the whole issue of college binge drinking.  That’s a perfectly fine thing to do. But I am having trouble convincing my brain that I don’t have to do it. If it’s there, fine.  Awesome. Go for it, find and connect things to a larger problem to your heart’s content, lil’ Fotis.  The problem is, if the connection to something larger isn’t there, then I am doing a disservice to the story I’m already telling. I think a lot of stand ups/storytellers have this issue. The feeling that you have to come up with something new and unique. And to a certain extent this is true, I mean plagiarism ain’t cool, kittens. But the truth is, my goal should be nothing more than to tell a good story. My goal shouldn’t be to connect my story to the greater good.  Just tell the story. Find the connections later.

Ok. Problem solved. Thanks for listening. Have any other writers out there experienced what I’m talking about?

Mike

*Don’t forget the forfeit!

Go Go’s To Remember

Monday, May 12th, 2008 | Plugs, Site News, Solo Show Stuff | 4 Comments

Happy Monday!

Improv A Go Go Anniversary Show

Over the last few months at Improv A Go Go, there has been a glut of new groups trying new and very interesting things.  Last night for example, one group, Musical Pubsicle, did a montage in the form of a… musical. Along with the Mustache Rangers set from a month or so back, it’s probably the best set I’ve seen this year. Another group improvised the opening to a Tarantino film. Very cool. Lots of swearing.  It’s nice to see groups using Go Go as a showcase for new forms and experiments. In my mind that’s what it’s all about.

Next week is Go Go’s 6th anniversary show! 6 years? 6 years? God, I’m old.  Age induced depression aside, the anniversary show should be pretty amazing. The lineup is out of sight cats and kittens, out of sight.  Ferrari McSpeedy, Drum Machine, Gay Straight Alliance and Five Man Job. All for $1. This show will definitely sell out. Get there by 745 (at least) to get a seat. The normal Go Go approach of getting to the show at 758 won’t cut it.

DWF

The first episode of Dinner With Fotis should be up by Wednesday.  I like what I’ve got for this first show, but it’s by no means indicative of what I want the show to be. Trying to come up with a cross of The Daily Show and This American Life is waaay harder than I thought it would be.  But, I think you’ll get a kick out of this first attempt.

Mike

Rampleseed and Something I’m Not Sure Is Really Happening

Friday, April 25th, 2008 | Plugs, Solo Show Stuff | 10 Comments

Happy Friday!

Rampleseed Kidnapped My Cat

It’s true. They took him. Last night. They lured him away with an assortment of shiny and squeaky objects. They sent me a ransom video. Clearly my cat is quite happy, which of course, was Rampleseed’s goal. To prove that I am a bad pet owner.  They returned him this morning complete with an assortment of brand new toys and a bettter self image than I have ever been able to give him.  Those bastards have me completely psyched out. I don’t know which way is up! I don’t know my left from my right! I just know that at 11pm tonight, I need to suck it up and face my mental superiors…
Details:
Friday April 25th, 11pm
Brave New Workshop
26th and Hennepin, MPLS
$10 It’s a fundraiser for Twin Cities Improv Festival
Rampleseed (Tyler Samples and Tom Reed) vs Ferrari McSpeedy (Joe Bozic and Mike Fotis)

A Comedian Walks Into A Conference Room

Speaking of my mental inferiority, in just a few minutes I will be heading downtown, walking into a conference room and performing my story about blogging for a group of about 100 lawyers.  My life has officially become the setup to a bad joke. Seriously. The whole thing will be over in less than 5 minutes. I’ll be honest, the only reason I’m doing this is because of the situation’s potential story worth. Could be great.

 Mike

2 Things 4/10/2008

Thursday, April 10th, 2008 | Solo Show Stuff | 1 Comment

Happy Thursday.

1. I decided not to blog yesterday so that the rampant fervor caused by my blog from earlier in the week could have time to subside. Just kidding. Yesterday sucked for a myriad of reasons and writing about them seemed to be the least healthy thing to do. Let me reiterate. Yesterday sucked.

2. So I’ve begun writing my Fringe show and I am not surprisingly, freaking out about the whole thing. It’s the same old crap from last year. Lots of ideas but none of them are taking shape. It’s my classic writing dilemma. I sit down to write one thing, decide that it’s awful and move onto something else only to decide that the new thing is also awful and soon enough I have about ten awful stories that are only awful because I can’t focus. It’s a frustrating thing. I know that once I get one story done, everything will fall into place, but it’s just a fucking pain in the ass getting there. I do know that the major story this year will be about Winnipeg. The difficult thing about writing that story will be taming it into something that is somewhat manageable. Oh yeah, I also have to try and remember the damn thing. I may have blocked that time in my life out more than I have been willing to admit. I’m in the process of creating the time line of the experience, which were I to perform just that would be…bad. From there, I not sure what to do. In a perfect world (which is what I want really, a perfect world with home cooked meals and gender neutral comedy*), my goal is to encompass several stories into the Winnipeg story. In a sense, I’m trying to write a hurricane. Something that lashes out wildly but finds strength and stability in its center. What? I don’t know, but that’s the visual I’m using. So anyway, I’m writing that. Should be good. Could be bad. Probably will be just fine.

Mike

*Come on! That was pretty funny. Or not. Whatev.

2 Things 4/2/2008

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 | Oleo, Solo Show Stuff, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Happy Wednesday! Just a reminder that this blog and many other neat things can be found at mikefotis.com.

1. Well, well, well. The insomnia is back. It’s not insomnia I suppose, because I do sleep. It’s more of a “can’t sleep at night when normal people do” kind of thing. It doesn’t matter if I wake up early in the morning or turn in at a reasonable hour at night, for the next week or so I won’t be able to sleep when I want to. Yay. What does this mean for you, the gentle reader? Well, If you’re a fan of early morning blogs, consider your ticket punched. Maybe I’ll use this time to be constructive and write my fringe show! Maybe. Or maybe I’ll do online crosswords, watch multiple episodes of The Wire (or some other HBO Original Programming) and think about writing my Fringe show, all the while my stomach churning like crazy for no reason whatsoever. I know, I know it’s not even 2am yet. Maybe the sleepy train will make a stop at my bed. That would be sweeter than a freeze pop.

2. I caught only the 2nd hour of The Biggest Loser last night, erm, 6 hours ago, but one thing is for sure. Mark, the older brother from Boston, can’t not cry. He essentially cried the entire episode. Someone sneezes and this guy cries. Someone mentions home or their family and this guy cries. Someone brings up the sky, grass, a car, a gas station, a quarter, wheat, the constitution, the internet, VH1, concepts, geometry, apples, applebutter, Joe Bozic or whatever and this guy cries. It got to the point that while crying on the phone to his wife, she told him to suck it up and get a hold of himself. If the rest of the viewing public is like me, they stood and slow clapped, which had Mark known what we were doing, would have made him cry.

Okay, time to stare at some wall.

Mike