to celebrate a 40 million something goal is human, to forgive is divine…

i imagine this is a much bigger post or discussion than what will fit in here but let’s get it started…

a soccer player [who was worth something like 40 million something - does it really matter when you hit 40 million whether the next word is pounds, euros or dollars?] scores a goal.

a hundred facebook statuses [stati?] read something along the lines of ‘amazing goal – so worth the money spent’

i get angry. [i know, not allowed, how absolutely elizabethan of me]

i post something about how no football player [or goal] is ever worth that amount of money. especially when hundreds of thousands [millions? does it matter once you've gone past hundreds?] of people are literally starving to death around the world

angry mob [but since we're online they can't exactly storm my castle with flaming torches, especially because of the high-tech moat system i have employed]

so discussion happens. well kinda. words are written and people [a lot of them strong christian types] strongly defend the soccer player, the club, the industry, the system.

but there is a huge disconnect. because arguments will be made [with the understood eyebrow raising condescension implied as to 'how can you even think such a thing you stupid, you.] and perhaps scripture, or scriptural ideas will be referenced and argumentative questions will be thrown [what are you saying? he should give the money back? how much of it? how much is too much?] all in defense of how much the person is worth his wages blah blah blah

what probably won’t happen is Jesus will not be quoted or referenced, because it is very hard to believe that Jesus would support the idea of a soccer player being worth millions of currency while people [specifically 'least of these' type people - Jesus' favourite type it seems] are left to starve to death or barely survive in miserable circumstances and conditions.

and what also won’t happen is the people defending overpaid soccer [and you can interchange soccer for music or entertainment or business or even church leader/speaker type - the soccer one is just a more blatant example but it is the same across the board for me] player guy won’t ever make a statement that it is okay for the poor person to suffer, starve or die. the position they take leads to that natural conclusion but they won’t ever state “i am okay with the idea that for the soccer player to get 40 million something, hundreds of people will go hungry” because i don’t believe that is a defendable argument – so play the emotion, challenge the lack of viable solution, ask the argumentative question, quote some out-of-context biblical scriptural idea, but refuse to be drawn on the fact [in my opinion] that the system is horribly wrong and broken. and disgustingly so.

the “are you suggesting?” questions are difficult because i don’t know that i have a solution – i do feel that if the player got 20 somethings instead of 40 somethings then possible the people who watch the games would be able to pay half of what they pay and so there would be a lot more money around for them to be reaching out to some of their ‘least of these’ people… but finding a solution is not my initial intention, because i believe it has to start with the acknowledgement that there is a problem. [and yes the problem is the heart of man and so on, but the one we are faced with is a problem of economic disparity that can not be denied] once we acknowledge there is a problem, that the system is broken, that it is ludicrous and shameful and wrong that the soccer player/actor/singer/politician/pastor/writer gets 40 million of something while the majority of people have to live on under 2 of something a day, then hopefully we can start working together on solutions.

at the very least, let’s stop celebrating the wrongness.

Comedysportz – like TheatreSports with a ref [and more spitting!]

so last nite A-Ron and i joined Steve and Kristin and friends for a 10pm showing [what a great time!] of Comedysportz, Philadelphia’s longest running [similiar to us, 18 years i think they said] improv show.

and had a really good time.

Kind of a cross between Whose Line Is It Anyway?, TheatreSports and Stellenbosch’s Ad Lib show and with a little more emphasis on the sports than we have the show starts with the Voice [one of the players who does voiceovers, some announcements and friendly banter with the ref] welcoming the ref [in full ref gear] who did a great job of mc’ing the show, making sure everyone knew what was happening all the time, collecting suggestions and enforcing penalties.

They began with a familiar game of what we call story, story die altho every time the person pointed at could not continue the story exactly, it prompted a double clap and reverse hitch-hike [two thumbs backwards over your shoulder] ‘he’s/she’s outta here’ – a lot more intense than ours normally are with the ref making some brutal switches and with the players literally taking up words mid-syllable – getting a movie someone had recently seen [Die Hard] and a book someone had just read [Anna Karenina] the story they told was called ‘Die Karenina’ and an audience member was nominated to shout out the title every time he was pointed at and so every time a player was “outta here” the ref would move the story forward a few chapters to chapter 7 of [point at audience member] “Die Karenina” and so you would be reminded of the title the whole way through which was nice… as a whole they were really brilliant at this game.

Two teams of four players were brought on to stage with a hand clap that started at 0 [hands moving toward each other but not touching] to 3 [little bit of clapping] to 7 [lots of clappin g] to 10 [clapping, foot-stamping and screaming] and ran around high-fiving audience players and just generally being energetic until they were introduced one by one [as they were introduced they came to a painted square front centre stage and did some mimed action so a huge golf drive or a stage roll or award receive or whatever] with a lot of fun and energy.

the two ref penalties they introduced last nite were the groaner for when someone makes a really awful lame pun or joke on stage and the ref throws a fluffy thing type piece of material on stage and they keep playing the game til the end, but then the offending player has to stand in the square at the front of the mat and apologise to the audience and if the apology is not received their team loses a point [sadly we didn't see this] and the other one is the brown paper bag over the head for a player or audience member who says something foul [sexual innuendo, something racist or sexist or otherwise inappropriate] and an audience member who suggested sex as a sporting activity got the treatment while the ref continued the explanation of the game – all done with much fun and a tsk, tsk type “shame shame” from the audience…

one thing this show had that was a bit different to ours back home was a lot more audience participation – not on stage playing games so much [altho they brought a rather mute chap on for a game of sound effects which the players handled really brilliantly] but a lot of call and response so when the ref says “loyal” the audience responds with “fans” and the ref often called for a 5 or 10 count clap to welcome the captains or the teams to the front to hear what game they are going to play – a variety of suggestions for game elements were taken from different sections of the audience [left hand side, back two rows etc] and it was a pretty suggestion-filled show with a prize of two free tickets to the best suggestion of the nite [well the one they thought was best cos i didn't win - possibly cos they didn't use my golf dimple ball guy or noose tester when they were asking for unusual jobs during intermission]

yes, intermission, cos that was a different thing to our show but it completely worked – they had a half time halfway through the show where you could go buy snacks or merch and sign up for the lucky draw comp [slash get email addresses for the database scam, the winner got a water bottle with comedysportz on it, great idea cos they got thirty to forty entries] and then all the ads we try sneak in at the end happen here [school shows, improv classes, upcoming auditions, corporate events etc etc] before the players return once again with high energy high fiving and performing until the serious competition continues…

A new game [to me] called four corners where the four players stood on the four corners of the mat and each pair [front two] got a suggestion [a country, relationship, mystical place like Narnia or Hogwarts - they got Istanbul - etc] and then the front two start a scene and whenever the ref feels like it she buzzes and calls rotate and everyone moves one corner across and starts or continues that scene – so each person is involved in two different scenes and the four scenes keep switching clockwise – much fun…

Then came historical replay where they asked for a historical event [civil war] and played a scene [some poetic licence as they made the whole war about race, but a running race] and then replayed it in two of the three suggestions of tarentino, romance and hate that they got.

Joyride saw four chairs set out and the teams alternated – they got the initials JO from the audience and then one team sat in the car and the other team would shout the line “hey those [insert word starting with J for the one team and O for the other team] have stolen our car” and then the team would do a couple of lines as whatever they had been endowed and then the buzzer would go and the other team would take the car – we saw Jalopy dealers, Old people, Jonas Brothers, Jurassic Park scientists and Olive oil salespeople among others – quick and fun and a little hit-and-miss…

5 things was a crazy energy game that kinda combined our long chain murder with environment and possible scandal… one guy leaves the room and a five to ten minute suggestion taking time happened [altho didn't feel long and boring cos of the energy of the ref and taking suggestions from different parts of the room and the voice involvement] they got 5 sporting activities so rugby, american football, surfing the net, jiujitsu and kayaking and then made each one weird by adding two elements so for example there was playing rugby on meatsteak with the muppets [they actually used the real muppet band name which is Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem which i have never heard of and which the dude guessed exactly] or kayaking on cream wearing google [yes the internet search engine, they did not make it easy] and jiujitsu in the circus against johnny cash…

an audience member went out with the player to make sure he could not hear any of the suggestions and when he came back the team had to get him to guess all five things [made it through three and a half but they were really tough] in four minutes [timed by the ref] – only thing is the whole thing is done in gibberish and the players can’t act out the actions but have to get the guy to do it… the team could choose the order they did the suggestions in and both teams had them written down on whiteboards so every time he went to the next suggestions they would write it out and show the audience to remind them… very fast paced frenetic game and as i said he only got three out of five but got a bonus point for knowing the muppet band name and it was a fun game to watch…

during the intermission the voice came and got some suggestions for events, occupations and products from various people around the audience which they used in some of the later games – one of the coolest things of the show was the energy and the variety – so they had three judges with a blue card and a red card [blue and red team] and after three of the game rounds they held up blue or red and team with the most got five points [which they scored on an electronic scoreboard behind them] and for two other games the ref got the whole audience to clap for which team they thought did better and scored them on her clapometer… for the last game the voice tallied the good jokes from each team and added them in afterwards…

after the intermission the teams returned and sang an impromptu song to the people whose birthdays it was [if it's your birthday month and you're on the mailing list you get a free ticket to the show] and then continued with the ‘fierce competition’.

They played a game called Laugh Out which is like our corpse challenge and our stand-in-a-line exercises we do in class – so a player from each team starts a serious game [they did a funeral for a pet] and anytime someone laughs they get “laughed out” with the buzzer and someone else takes their place – team with least laugh outs wins the points…

They they played the sound effects game and took a team photo with the volunteer after the game which was really cool – hand held point and shoot, quick pose and photo for the web.

Then thay played what i’m sure will cause eyes to roll back home but which i thort was pretty cool a game called spit take which is like double take excepting that each of the four team members had a bottle of water and at any point of the game would take a swig of water and someone else on stage would say something like “i have pictures of you” at which the person would spit take [oh yes!] – was very funny cos the one dude filled his mouth with water and then looked up and saw that his team member had already filled his mouth and so did an actual spit take which wasn’t intended – very cool – and the audience got a “don’t worry, it’s only water” if they got sprayed during the game…

Last up was a game of world’s worst like they play on Whose Line? as Scenes from a hat. So the ref reads a world’s worst suggestion “things to say at a Christening” “events to compete in at the olympics” and when someone has an idea they step forward and give a one liner and get either a whistle for good laughs or a honk for dead silence vibes and score points for the whistles…

the show ran for 90 minutes but with the intermission and a lot of ref/audience banter and some longer games or explanations it seemed about the length of our shows back home, if not shorter [no long game to end off with, most games 4 min on the clock] and ended with everyone on stage just vibing [sword fights, high fives, wrestling, rolling on ground, celebrating victory etc] in slow motion and as their names were announced they would come to the front and wave and head out until just the two captains were left and finally the ref – really cool way to end the show

no light person [so constant lights], no music [except played by the voice in between games or occasional sound effects] and yet it didn’t feel empty and the endings to games didn’t feel forced… very much looking forward to auditioning end of the month [not sure i'll be able to play schedule/time-wise but would be nice to know if i can] – got a special deal 8.50 for this show but normally $15 or $12 for students so don’t know how often i’ll be able to go as we don’t have a lot of extra cash… but definitely a worthwhile evenings entertainment…

all of the actor peoples were decent with four of the eight standing out for me as really good/fun to watch…

this guy is amazing at everything [video]

that was the tagline i saw and i was curious while obviously mildly skeptical but flip, check it out – this is insane:

clicking here and here will take you there but i know that you being who you are are going to be tempted to click here instead. why would you do that, it’s the first two, really.

be afraid – of new zealand – be very afraid…

is it just me or is this one of the most ridiculous sporting statements EVER since the days of Murray walker in Formula 1 talking about how a driver being overtaken was a great tactical move that would come into play later… the headline was “Conditions should suit us”

“New Zealand wicketkeeper Brendon McCullum thinks his side’s greater experience of conditions in Mirpur could give them the edge over South Africa in their quarter-final clash on Friday. New Zealand will have bitter memories of the ground – it was here that Bangladesh beat them in four successive one-day internationals in October last year – but those games will at least have given them in-depth local knowledge of what to expect.”

so in a nutshell Brendon, you’re saying that because this ground was the setting for your team’s worst humiliation in recent years, you have the upper hand…? got it.

click here to read the rest of the article which i found here – http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/content/story/507688.html

“the wicketkeeper was asleep!” – yes, you’re right…. literally!

i didn’t watch a lot of the South Africa/India match because i was busy helping my friend make a short film and then mc’ing a charity event, and so was following mostly on radio and cricinfo, but i did get to see the start of the India innings where Sehwag glanced a ball behind him between the keep and first slip and the keeper didn’t even move – it was crazy bizarre cos it seemed like a straightforward catch but he literally just stood still… that is until i read this article…

Kolkata – Morné van Wyk didn’t just appear to be asleep behind the stumps in South Africa’s thrilling victory over India last Saturday – he was!

Confusing a sleeping pill for a vitamin pill Morne van Wyk gobbled one up before the game and was literally fighting to stay awake. Fortunately we won the game, altho that miss could have been costly [altho i had Sehwag in my fantasy dream league team so he scored a bit AND we won which is the way to go] but it wasn’t and so the whole thing is pretty funny… and probably a lot easier to believe than when shane warne got bust for drugs and claimed his mom gave them to him a few years ago…

you can read the rest of the story here…

everyone’s doing it… well not really, but they SHOULD!!!

this might sound like a devious marketing scheme, but it’s not – everybody should do the TheatreSports course, everybody…

for those of you who have no idea what TheatreSports is, where have you been? Only Cape Town’s longest running live show [and best kept secret it seems way too much] TheatreSports is our local ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ type improv comedy show where absolutely everything is made up on the spot – two teams of actors compete in a series of improvised games based on a series of suggestions we get from the audience, are awarded scores from our randomly selected judges and produce an evening of sheer comedic entertainment and much fun for the whole family.

for example we might ask for an interesting job [botanist] and an adjective [grumpy] and a tv, movie or theatre style [shakespeare] and an object smaller than a car [statue of madiba] and then we will produce for you a shakespearean play in which a grumpy botanist will appear somehow linked to a statue of madiba… pure entertainment [shows are mondays at the intimate theatre in town and tuesdays in kalk bay - check out our website for details ]

but back to the course – about once a year TheatreSports runs their course which has now been broken up into two separate parts – beginners and intermediate – where we introduce the concept of TheatreSports and improvised acting, but mostly do a lot of exercises, warm-ups and play a whole lot of the TS games – it is the most fun anyone can have with their clothes on that doesn’t specifically involve chocolate [unless its improvised chocolate - that's my opinion anyways] – the next course we are running is going to take place on the 19th and 20th March and costs R500 which is a ridiculous amount for what you get

the reason i believe everyone should do the course is because it is valuable in a number of ways – apart from just being a whole lot of fun, the TheatreSports course is designed to encourage you – with a gentle push (you never have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with) – to break down your inhibitions and go beyond yourself – to explore and imagine and create and let loose some of the playful creativity that may have been locked deep down in yourself – and really just go for it…

because everyone who does the course is in the same metaphorical boat so to speak there is no sense of performance anxiety in front of ‘these people’ – you are all in it together and so what quickly happens is a group bonding and a collective diving in and enjoying the pleasures and challenges of improv. it doesn’t matter if you get it wrong because there really is not much of a wrong – there is embracing the “yes, let’s” of the vehicle and giving it a go.

how the system works is you do the beginner’s course and then a little while later we run the intermediate course (only for those who have completed the beginners) and when that is done we may invite one or two people who have possible TheatreSports cred potential to join us for class and see if one day you will play the shows with us – so doing the course is just doing the course, altho for some fortunate people it may mean a future life of improv shows and beyond…

and so i really honestly believe this is something that will benefit every single person – the course is aimed at people who are finished school, but we will hopefully be running some school-related workshops in the upcoming holidays so everyone is covered – for more information or to book your place, get hold of Tandi on 084611 7270 or email us on info@improguise.co.za

fantasy dream league cricket world cup – join us – ykywt!

so a very small bunch of us take part in these dream league teams from time to time but it would be rad if for the world cup we had a bit of a bigger league – the game is free and what’s on offer between us is bragging rights and so if you would like to play send me your email address (brettfish@hotmail.com) and i will send you an invite once we’ve set up the league – game is free and being involved brings even the random games to importance… in other news i am quietly confident about this being our world cup…

Cricket World Cup Fantasy League
Round 1 starts on Saturday 19 February. Enter your team now at www.udt.co.za/worldcup

New challenges for Fantasy Managers
This year we bring you some exciting new enhancements to the game that will challenge your fantasy skills even further:

Substitutes Bench – use your bench to strengthen your starting team (key decision is who to start as players on the bench score half the points of starting players).

Tighter Budget – choose wisely how you spend your budget as you won’t be able to afford all the top players and need to balance your team.

King of Leagues – this is where our top performing league groups battle it out to see who’s got the most skilled group of fantasy managers.

blowkarting…

so yesterday morning the beautiful val and i headed out to muizenberg for my super surprise birthday morning where we weere met by one of my best friends rob lloyd and his wife nicky and went for an hour’s worth of blokarting on the beach which in a nutshell is like a combo between windsurfing and go-karting and a whole lotta fun.

you get a three wheeler cart thing with a huge sail and armed with a rope (which pulls the sail tighter or lets it slacken off) and a steering wheel bar (for left and right movement) you aim the sail into the wind, catch a breeze and set off down the seaweed strewn beach dodging people and interested dogs and fishermen (who are people too, let’s not discriminate) and trying not to be blown over (was the only one who managed that one)

and yeah, you should try it cos it was a lot of fun. and those things move. apparently the top speed in one of them is something like 106km but on the beach we didn’t quite make it to that speed (probly barely passed 95) but still got quite a rush. my beautiful wife valerie was quite the dominationer at pulling a two wheeler without flipping and also apparently (i sadly missed them) gooi’d two epic 360′s at the end of the beach.

i did have to get pushed by a friendly passerby man and a fisherman (who was also friendly but less passery by) on two different occasions (and my buddy rob and even val at the end in the last journey back to tbe beginning which was the only not-as-cool part of the adventure as the wind died down and i kept getting completely bogged down in the sinkier sand) and probly my favourite part was going into the edge of the sea most of the way back and getting nailed in the face by the spray cos i was gunning it pretty epicly.

yes, so do it. and yay to my wife and her “yes, lets” policy for 2011 – life to the full indeed…

for the determinedly board [game recommendation - Rage]

well, this one is card game, but ‘determinedly cardful’ just didn’t work…

sounds more hectic than it is, but, to those who have been fortunate enuff to play it, the lesser known cousin to Uno (created by the makers of) is a more higher-grade and better game

i have no idea why it never took off like Uno but we were fortunate to discover this when i was still a kid and some friends introduced it to us and then gave us a pack – it would only be many years later when we would scour the internet for more packs, find most of them in Germany (the game has passed between different distributing companies a number of times) and import a bunch and spread them out between our friends.

you can actually get the full scoop of Rage in the wiki here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_%28card_game%29] but in a nutshell it is a bidding game, much like bridge, where you are dealt ten cards and need to guess/decide/ascertain how many tricks (a round of everyone playing one card) you are likely to win. You then play out the ten rounds and score points for bidding correctly while losing points for getting more or less than what you bid.

the game is brought to life by 5 different special action cards which add bonuses or change the colour of the trump (called the Rage) or can act as a Joker and these really spice things up.

you start with ten cards each and play them out. then nine cards each. and eight… and so on until the last round you have one card and have to bid on that.

the coolness of Rage is that it doesn’t matter what cards you get – good or bad – what matters is how you bid on them and then play them – part strategy, part luck, part special action cards, a game of Rage takes between 45min to an hour and a quarter and is a lot of quick fun

back in my student days there was a student house called Highbury in Rondebosch that i used to frequent and we used to play Rage thru the nite on many occasions which elicited the brett/dan sneaky “what’s the difference between 2am and 3am?” as we would engineer one more game…

definitely worth hunting down on the internet and scoring yourself a few packs, quick easy’ish game to teach and hours of fun…

for the determinedly board [game recommendation - Carcossane]

i gather a lot of people out there will have known settlers of catan but i imagine a lot fewer of you will have heard of this gem – Carcossane – or as we like to refer to it “Kucky San”

in the slightest bit similiar to settlers in that the board is different every time (thus each game is vastly different unlike a risk, cluedo or monopoly which have a relative sameness to them) and in fact the gameplay is creating the board…

basically your turn consists of taking a square board piece out of the bag and placing it on the table adjacent to another piece already down and then adding one of your men to either a road, a city, a monastery or farm piece – this carries on and whenever one of the above elements are completed you get your guy back and score differing points (1 pt for each road section, 2 for each city piece, 9 points for a completed monastery which is 9 cards big etc) and at the end of the game you score points for all the completed cities the land your farmers are on are touching…

again, one of those games you have to see and play to really get it but the bonus over settlers is that a good game will take between 45 min and an hour and 15 so a lot shorter if you don’t have the time for a whole evening game – and also the expansion packs (we have 5 or 6) are great additions to the game and you can mix and match them (the beautiful val big dream to play a game with all of them together one day) to create pretty much whole new games (cos strategy and tactics change with every addition)

you really should check out this game – again, a little pricey if you buy in south africa (knowing people overseas or who are travelling this way soon often helps a lot) but the price gets erased quickly by the hours and hours of fun that ensue… great way to spend an evening (2 games involving different expansions) with us to 6 people…