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I love Chicago. It's been my 3rd home for the last 10 years. After graduating from Michigan in 2001, I'd say a good 1/4 of the people I knew ended up moving there. And why the hell not? If you're from the Midwest and wanted to stay close enough to your family that they were just a half day drive away, and wanted to be in a city that wasn't 10 years behind the trends of the coasts, it was the place to be (oooooh! burn! that's right. I'm an East Coast Elitist now. Just like the Michigan Fight Song instills a sense of intellectual arrogance with the "leaders and best" lines, living on a coast makes you feel a decade of trends ahead of you flyover folks. I think yesterday's Detroit News had a story about a new fad called "Zubaz" . . . I kid because I love).
Estimated Date of Photo? . . . 2009
So with so many friends living there, I've consequently made many many trips there. And Chicago, you've supplied me with some damn good times. All-you-can-drink happy hours, deep dish delisciousness, two great weddings, redheads, trough peeing in Wrigley, roofdeck parties, Old Style bars, and Chicago even let me date my biggest crush ever (spoiler alert - it didn't work out). Granted, I've also spent one night puking in a cab, and another getting kicked out of a cab because I had no money and then ended up on a corner in the middle of northern Chicago without a fucking clue where to go (kudos to Hillary and Regan for making sure I woke up in a bed as opposed to a puddle of some homeless dude's urine), but the good has far outweighed the bad. Chicago, you're my kind of town.
But having been to Chicago so many times, I've already exhausted a shit ton of the possible new things to do, or at least all the things the average tourist would do. Sears Tower. Shedd Aquarium. Millenium Park. Navy Pier (its like Fanieul Hall, but with 225% more mustaches!), etc. But as I brainstormed with 52-partner-in-crime Megs, I remembered that I was a comedy elitest, and that Chicago was home to the single greatest breeding ground of comedy over the last 30 years - Second City Chicago.
I've been to improv before. Hell, I've been to Second City in Detroit before. But this is different. This is a comedy landmark.
I've been to improv before. Hell, I've been to Second City in Detroit before. But this is different. This is a comedy landmark.
I don't even need to give the detailed history of the place to justify it having that status. All I need to do is list their famous alumni, and holy shit, there's quite a few - Fred Willard, Harold Ramis, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey. And that's just the start. Check out the rest of the list, and you'll find a bunch of other second tier names (Dan Castellaneta, AKA, Homer Simpson) and "that guy"s (Jack McBrayer, AKA, Kenneth from 30 Rock). That's comedy gold, Jerry . . . GOLD!
Since I count an even 20 people on the Chicago alumni list that have connections to Saturday Night Live (mostly as stars), let's have a little SNL diversion, shall we? It's a nice coincidence that SNL has a musical act every week, because just like with music, older people will always tell younger people that SNL was better back in their day, with "in their day" typically occurring around ages 11-16. Darrell Hammond was basically filling the role Phil Hartman left, but I'm always going to prefer Hartman because I was raised on a Hartman-backed SNL. So now at the age of 31, I of course think SNL . . . well, blows (save for the occasional Digital Short or Timberlake-hosted episode), even though its basically the same formula of 1-note jokes being retold 6 times in a 5 minute span. Landshark = Hans & Franz = Gap Girls = Spartan Cheerleaders. It is what it is, it's just that most of our comedy tastes have evolved. I mean, I consider myself a comedy elitist, but even I once thought . . . . Dane Cook was funny (forgive me Mitch Hedberg, for I have sinned). So even though it appears to suck, maybe it only mildly sucks these days. I don't know. Or maybe I just need to drink more during it. But one thing I do know? Norm MacDonald was the greatest host of Weekend Update in SNL's history, regardless of your generation. If you disagree, your opinion is wrong.
So Megs and I had a nice little pseudo-date by attending the 8:00 show on a Tuesday, which was surprisingly, a packed house, despite Second City actually having 2 different theaters there. And maybe we saw the next Bill Murray up there . . . or maybe we saw the next Horatio Sanz (star of Boat Trip!). Either way, it was funny as expected. Though what I didn't expect was the mass exodus after the second act and just before the final half hour of 100% improv (the first 2 acts were probably 70% sketches, 30% improv). What gives? You could have set your Tivo to make sure you don't miss your Jay Leno, dammit. And you ditch early and miss the best part of the night? To quote another great comic: "Whooooooooo . . . . are these people?"
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