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Spent a long weekend in Indiana at Niki’s parents’ lake house. It was just what the doctor ordered. And by “doctor” I’m talking about Dr. Lanny Latham of course. There was plenty of “Having Fun”, “Pumping It Up” and “Enjoying” to be had. I did, however, manage to lose my wedding ring. Whoops. It happened on the last day I was there – which was on Monday. I was swimming in the lake when Niki told me to “do quick hands”. If you’re not familiar with the concept of “Quick Hands”, it is the exercise Dr. Latham developed where you move your hands back and forth together in a very quick fashion. It is supposed to get people immediately psyched. And it always works. Except when I did it, my wedding ring immediately flew into the water and sank to the bottom. We tried looking for it forever but it must’ve been covered up by sand and we couldn’t find it. So whenever you do “Quick Hands”, and trust me, you will be doing “Quick Hands”, make sure you’re not wearing a wedding ring.

Since I’ve gotten back from Indiana, I’ve been purty busy. You could even say I’ve been “Going For It”. On Tuesday night I went to The White Stripes concert at the Garden with some Carolina buddies: Charles, Teddy and Onur. Jack White definitely adheres to the Get Psyched philosophy. You can read all about the show if you feel so inclined on NYTimes.com. Then, last night I performed at Sue Ball’s show at Mo Pitkins as Dr. Lanny Latham. And tonight I have two shows. First up is the very last “Get Psyched!” show at Rififi. I had a good run at Rififi but it’s time for Lanny to move on to bigger and better things: like his important seminars at UCBT in August. Here’s the info about tonight’s last show at Rififi:

“Get Psyched!”
Thursday, July 26th at 8 pm
Rififi (Cinema Classics)
332 East 11th Street (bt. 1st and 2nd Ave.)
Cost: $5
Hosted by Dr. Lanny Latham
Professional Comedians:
Kurt Braunohler
Kimmy Gatewood
Adam Newman
Becky Yamamoto
Dennie Nast
Lesley Tsina

Then, I am performing in Adira Amram’s show tonight as Jerry Foxworthy:

Boom Boom
Thursday, July 26th 10:30pm
The Green Room
45 Bleecker Street
btwn Bowery and Lafayette

And finally this weekend marks the 9th Annual Del Close Marathon at the UCBT. I know off hand I will be performing with Monkeydick: The Reunion Tour 2007 on Friday night at 8 pm and also with The Smartest Panel of Experts in the Universe as Dr. Lanny Latham on Friday night at 12:30 am. So if you’re planning to see the Marathon, check those shows out. Can’t wait for the ‘thon to start. I better catch up on my sleep. Oh wait, too late… Better yet, maybe I should just “Drink Plenty of Fluids.”

Yesterday, on the way home from work I got on the bus at 34th St. and 3rd Ave. We went about 5 blocks and then the traffic stopped dead. A swarm of people were running south down 3rd Avenue and pointing up. Everybody in the bus started panicking and yelled at the bus driver, “Something is happening! Let us out!” Finally the bus driver opened the doors, and everybody ran out. I walked up to Lexington curious what was going on. When I got there I looked to my right and saw an enormous cloud of what looked like smoke or rubble heading right towards me. Everybody was running away, so I started running too. I didn’t know what to think, but I figured it wasn’t good. After a few blocks I turned around and stopped. I realized it was just an optical illusion – it wasn’t smoke or rubble heading towards me – it was steam spewing hundreds of feet into the air. And so I walked around it and followed the thousands of New Yorkers on their way home. I still didn’t really know what happened – but I did know that it wasn’t a terrorist attack. Still, I thought it would be a huge news story. When I got home and turned on the TV, there was zero news footage about it. CNN was running a story on “The War on the Middle Class.” My parents didn’t even know anything had happened. I guess that’s how a lot of these news stories go…Oh well…back to the comedy…

Just a reminder to come check out Jerry Foxworthy (Jeff Foxworthy’s brother) tonight as he hosts the penultimate “Get Psyched!” show at Rififi at 8pm. Jerry is excited to share with you some of his “A” material. Besides performing his comedy, Jerry also works for Con Ed. And he may have accidentally caused the explosion on 41st and Lex. He’s sorry about that. It was an oversight on his part.

This Thursday marks the penultimate “Get Psyched!” show at Rififi. We had a great run but we’re moving on to concentrate on the written out, stage version of the show that’s being put up at the UCBT. Dr. Lanny Latham will be taking the night off as he prepares for his August seminars at the UCBT. But taking his place as the host will be none other than Jerry Foxworthy (Jeff Foxworthy’s brother).

And Jerry has a assembled some of his favorite comedians. Check it out:

Shane Mauss (Winner of Best Stand Up Comic at 2007 HBO US Comedy Festival)

Rob O’Reilly (Has appeared on The Tonight Show and Last Comic Standing)

Sean O’Connor (Host of Here’s the Thing)

Abbi Crutchfield (Host of The Living Room)

Rachael Parenta (Just For Laughs)

“Get Psyched!” Variety Show
Thursday, July 19th at 8 pm
Rififi (Cinema Classics)
332 East 11th Street (bt. 1st and 2nd Ave.)
Cost: $5
Hosted by Jerry Foxworthy (Jeff Foxworthy’s brother)

Busy weekend. I had 3 rehearsals and one show. The rehearsals were for 2 shows being put up tonight at the UCBT: Maude Night and Up Late! with Lord Voldemort! So come check those out if you feel so inclined. And the show I did was Get Psyched! at the UCBT on Saturday night. It went well and I’ll be doing it again in August at the UCBT, so stay tuned for that.

I saw Ratatouille on Friday night. I’m usually not into cartoons, but it’s Pixar and it’s been getting good reviews. It’s cool that Pixar made somewhat of a gamble on such a big budget movie – i.e. by picking what could be perceived as a bland subject: food, then making the main character a rat, and finally by giving the voice of the rat to Patton Oswalt instead of Tom Hanks. And it all paid off.

Besides all that I still had time for one of my favorite rituals of the day: eating cereal and watching TV. I do this every single morning – even if I’m late for work. And because I only have about 10 minutes of TV time to watch, I usually just watch SportsCenter on ESPN. Lately, SportsCenter has been airing a segment titled “Who’s Now?” – where panelists and voters rate who’s the more “now” between two random athletes. Anybody else sick of these? It’s funny because there’s such a big build-up and debate about stuff that is so inconsequential to what’s actually going on – like who’s more “now”: Danica Patrick or David Beckham? Before we know it, we’ll have these type debates on other channels (actually I’m sure we already do.) But just for the sake of argument, let’s see what other arguments we can come up with:

CSPAN – Who’s Cooler: Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson or Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow?

Discovery Channel – Which Planet is Better: Saturn or Uranus?

Food Network – What’s More Awesome: Bacon Bits or Lettuce?

History Channel – Who’s More “It”: Otto Von Bismarck or Rasputin?

TNT – Which Re-Run of Law & Order is More “Now”? The One We Aired on Monday at 8pm or the One We Aired on Monday at 10pm?

Any others?

This Saturday is Bastille Day. For some reason Bastille Day makes me think of the band Rush. It’s probably because Rush had a song called “Bastille Day”, and I went through a huge Rush faze in high school. I guess I just loved playing the air drums. One quick Rush anecdote: when I was in 10th grade a group of friends and I got tickets to see Rush at the now defunct OMNI Coliseum in Atlanta. The plan was for all of us to meet at my house after school (Mom, stop reading at this point). Then we’d gather up as much alcohol as we could (we ended up pouring vodka into bottles of Club Soda), drive to the Brookhaven MARTA Station parking lot and start drinking. After a few drinks we were then supposed to take MARTA (Atlanta’s transit system) to the OMNI. The only problem was we ended up spending way too much time in the Brookhaven MARTA Station parking lot. By the time we got to the OMNI, the concert was almost over. As we stumbled to our seats the crowd was chanting for Rush to come back and give one last encore. We chanted along too. Rush closed with “Tom Sawyer”. We literally saw one song. But it was worth it. I guess.

Okay, back to the main subject at hand. This Saturday, July 14th, also happens to be a very important show for our good friend, Dr. Lanny Latham. Maybe Lanny could have talked some sense to my younger self and I would have gone to the concert on time. Let’s see if Lanny can help you too.

Get Psyched!
Saturday, July 14th at 7:30*
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
307 W. 26th Street (& 8th Ave.)
Cost: $8
Click Here For Reservations

Appearing with Dr. Lanny Latham are Adira Amram and Nate Shelkey.

*Sharing the bill with the hit show, Eliza Skinner is SHAMELESS.

Enjoy.

Neil Peart of “Rush”.

This Saturday is 7/7/07. It also happens to be the date of Dr. Lanny Latham’s mind-blowing seminar titled “Get Psyched!” at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Coincidence? I think not. If this is not enough of a sign for you to hurry over to the UCB on Saturday and get your life drastically changed for the better, then I don’t know what is. Oh yeah, wait, also…the show starts at 7…:30.

Get Psyched!
Saturday, July 7th at 7:30
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
307 W. 26th Street (& 8th Ave.)
Cost: $8
Get Your Reservations Immediately Before It’s Too Late

Also appearing with Dr. Lanny Latham are Adira Amram and Nate Shelkey. The seminar was masterfully directed by Jackie Clarke.

7/7/07 at 7:30? All signs point to Dr. Lanny Latham and Get Psyched!