Finally, an Organic Fake Blood!

Everyone knows that corn syrup and red food coloring makes the best fake blood. But you may not know about the looks you get when you regularly purchase these items in small towns across America as an unshaven man in his late twenties who looks none too little like a terrorist.

I do. I also know how red my teeth turn when I have to hold the stuff in my mouth for too long. The more Seth ad-lib's, the darker they get. Also, to eco-friendly, liberal guys like us, over processed agribusiness products like corn syrup and food coloring are like edible Fox News.

I began to wonder if there was a more just way to pretend that I was bleeding. Believe it or not, I found an environmentally friendly alternative that was just as good and for just twice as much money.

The solution (get it? solution!) is organic agave nectar and pure cranberry juice concentrate. It's tarty, fruity, sweet, and even mixes well with homemade Febreze.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

In the interest of fair and balanced reporting, I should add that for every bizarre set-up we may have to suffer through, we also get to go somewhere like this.

Canned Laughter

Speaking of shows at high schools, we were recently the featured entertainment at a canned food drive at a school in New Hampshire. The performance venue? The gym.

While in high school, we avoided that building. Still, it was fun to change in the boy’s locker room as an adult and with no one around to call us gay.

As traveling performers, we’re always the away team. We never have the home court advantage. But with so many miles under our belt, we’re accustomed to performing in all kinds of spaces, ranging from god-awful to endurable.

The audience was divided into two lengths of bleachers facing the basketball court. This might be good for watching a game, but it’s bad for skits that have, as we say in the industry, blocking. We had no choice but to perform up and down the court, always not facing half the crowd no matter which way we turned. It brought to mind images of English Redcoat columns being attacked on both flanks by colonial revolutionaries. It was exactly like nightmares that I actually had in high school.

That said, we were happy to be the entertainment for an event dedicated to such a good cause. And to get money.

The Seth and the Darkness

Two audience members came up to me after a recent show and said that they'd seen us before. When they told me which show they had been to, I almost dropped the “Hi, I’m Seth” shirt I was folding.

I asked if there was a particular moment that had stood out for them at their virgin LNP experience. They looked at each other gravely, then turned to me and said in unison: “The Darkness.”

And yes, they said it with a capital “d.”

It all happened at a high school in an affluent suburb of Boston. I won't say which, but let's just say that there's a fig named after it. Seth and I were on stage leading an audience participation piece. The young woman with whom Seth was bantering said, from her seat in the audience, “I like your shirt!” Seth, squinting in the bright light and unable to see into the dimly lit house, responded with the following:

“Thanks, I like your… darkness.”

Seth squinted harder and discovered, to his horror, that he had addressed the single black student in the crowd.

No Sleep Till Boston

The man next to me in the photo above is the reason I couldn’t sleep on a red-eye flight from Las Vegas to Boston. I guess he thought I chose to fly through the night because I wanted to hang out, fully awake, on an airplane. He must have thought that was strange, because he clearly planned to sleep the whole time. Loudly, odorously, and on top of me.

According to Newton’s laws, my neighbor and I couldn’t both occupy the same space at the same time. But this would have been news to 26D. We exchanged pleasantries during taxi, take-off and landing, but as soon as his eyes closed he turned into the proverbial 500 pound gorilla, and “anywhere he wants to” seemed to mean “on my shoulder.”

His plump, warm arm hung well past his half of the armrest. His top half teetered precariously as though he were of those inflatable clowns you see at children’s parties. The only difference was a social one, in that I wasn’t allowed to repeatedly punch him the face.

Fortunately, revenge is even sweeter than Biscoff. The act of publicly outing my travel companion has so rejuvenated me that I feel like I’ve slept the sleep of ten red-eyes, or half of one normal sleep. Good night, sweet prince. Flight of angels indeed.

PS – Why is Delta’s in-flight magazine available on-line?

The Most Interesting Local Organic Tomato on Earth

Here are two interesting things about this tomato. First, it was delicious. Second, it was grown with one hundred and fifteen degree water piped straight out of the earth.

Seth and I bought a bunch of them in Hooper, Colorado while in the area for a show at Adams State College. We got in the night before and were delighted to find that the local hot springs was open until 10pm. We were even more delighted to find that they use the naturally heated spring water to grow organic tomatoes and cucumbers in their greenhouses.

Another local entrepreneur decided that the warm water was just right for growing something else: alligators. I’m glad we were swimming in the water while eating something grown with the water rather than swimming in the water and being eaten by something grown in the water.

After a long day of travel, nothing beats a hot soak under the stars in the largest alpine valley in the world. Fully relaxed and only a little woozy from the elevation, I brushed what looked like a black widow off my towel and called it a night.

The Fridge of Fate

Last night we played Castleton State College in Vermont. Our host was one of the formerly four eyed who have undergone “Lasik” corrective surgery. If you thought of the funniest song that could have been playing when she entered the doctor’s waiting area, what would it be?

If you guessed “Blinded by the Light,” you’re both right and funny, or you're her.

After the show, we headed back to The Comfort Inn, which after four years of playing Castleton, we know quite well. Still, the adjective “comfort” doesn’t exactly leap to mind when we think of it. Maybe it’s the barb wired military facility across the street, the bitter cold, or the fact that Andrew was throwing up everywhere the last time we were there. I think I’ll just call it “The Inn.”

At The Inn, Zach asked the man behind the desk if there was a refrigerator he could use. And there was… IF you’re a gambling man. You see, any food put into this fridge may or may not be eaten by a member of the hotel staff. There was no way to know. Was it worth it?

No. Especially because our informer added that he had once “put laxatives” into his own pizza to catch the thief. The guilty party apparently “sh*t themself.” Not the most reassuring words from someone with a master key to your room.

Zach did not trust his food to the Fridge of Fate. I did not trust that the guy had actually baked Ex-Lax into a pizza. We were not comfortable.

Sorbet for Your Eyes

It occurs to me that the last two posts have been, as the middle schoolers once said, a little "grody." So I thought I would put up a bit of a palate cleanser. Here's a picture of Seth that I took with the special features feature of the creepy, Big-Brothery camera in my laptop. We're currently "working" (blogging) out of the Haymarket Cafe in Northampton, Mass. We did a show at UMASS Amherst last night that their school paper billed as "a mid-week priority." We've made it!

Funny Ha-Hah? No.

Our material isn’t the only thing we produce that’s funny. There’s also our smell.

Let’s face it. We’re some guys. And we’re guys who don’t shy from extra-garlic hummus. Some might say we seek it out.

So you can imagine that after a few days of travel in a tightly confined vehicle, there's some pretty wavy lines emanating from us. Plus we think of ourselves as fairly counterculture, or as a member of a frat once put it, “sketchy homos.” And that means that we don’t like products like Febreze, which is said to eliminate both smells and pets.

That’s why we got so excited when our costumer designer Tim Baum told us about a homemade alternative, or "Bathtub Febreze." If you mix equal parts cheap vodka and water in a spray bottle, it apparently does the trick. It also sounds like a fun, slow way to drink.