Let’s talk about money, baby.

The Bible says, ‘The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.’

i have noticed, however, that for most people, talking about money seems to be the evilest of evil. Or close to.

Why is it that people do not like to talk about money? As if it is this hallowed ‘That-Which-shall-Not-Be-Named’ mystical creature upon whose mentioning chaos and damnation occurs?

You don’t believe me? Try asking someone sitting with a group of friends how much they earn.

And it goes a little something like that.

Well, i’ve been thinking about it a bit lately – tbV and i did a preach on kingdom economics on the West Coast and it feels like time to get some conversation going on about it here.

People react uber strongly any time i dare question the exorbitant prices football stars get paid in transfer fees.

When i called it evil that the “U.S. will spend $350 million on ‪#‎Halloween‬ costumes for our PETS which is 32 x’s more than Liberia’s healthcare budget” there were a bunch of people jumping in to justify or explain to me why it was not really that bad.

And more.

So this is just an intro piece, but what would YOU like to hear on the topic?

And how free would you be, in a group of relative strangers, to say what you earned? Deal or no big deal?

[To look at Giving that Costs, click here]

[For a piece looking at how we spend our TIME, MONEY and ENERGY, click here]

[For an excellent piece on ‘Storing her Money in the Stomachs of the Needy, click here]

 

Pearls before Skeletons

It has been a while but here is a classic Pearls Before Swine misdirection [one of my favourite forms of comedic] to get you smiling:

And a bonus one depicting Pearls creator Stephan Pastis working SO HARD to get to his intended punclusion:

 

Gotta love the Pearls… and if you do…

[For a classic stupid Croc Pearls, click here]

[For more Pearls Before Swine strips than you can shake a very long stick at, click here]

unseen Brett Andy IX to vote for…

So today i was on a semi long-distance trip and penned a couple of new brett andy’s – usually i try them out on facebook/twitter first before i see what people really like, but these have never been viewed before and so i would really appreciate it if you would take a minute to mention if any of them make you smile or laugh or silently chortle…

“As I finished sewing up the incision, there was a moment of panic as I thought I’d left the scalpel inside Mr Jenkins. Then a wave of relief swept over me as I remembered that I’m not a surgeon, I’m the janitor.” [Brett Andy]

“I dressed up as a skeleton for Halloween, but then ended up staying at home cos I had no body to go with me.” [Brett Andy]

“As the news came to me that I’d been given the death penalty, I thought to myself, “These new soccer rules are becoming a little extreme.” [Brett Andy]

“ “I’m Thor!” He shouted again. But no-one seemed to be paying much attention. Curse that wretched lisp!” [Brett Andy]

“I’ve always wondered if it is white with black stripes, or black with white stripes. Which was pretty strange because I was looking at a giraffe at the time.” [Brett Andy]

“ “Out, Out, damned spot!” cried Lady Macbeth. But still the mutt refused to budge.” [Brett Andy]

“ “2B or not 2B?” pondered Hamlet, as he contemplated his opening move in Battleships.” [Brett Andy]

“After watching the cricket for five days, I thought, “I’ve got to get me a more interesting bug.” [Brett Andy]

“My wife asked me to turn the kettle on, so I looked at it and said, “Hey baby. How you doin?” [Brett Andy]

“That’s the last time I play Blackjack with Mike Tyson.”

still (theatre)sporting after all of these years

so this last saturday TheatreSports turned 17 – that’s right, cape town’s longest running show and too-often best kept secret has been running for 17 years, and i have been around for ten of them…

we celebrated with a halloween themed birthday show in the little theatre opposite the intimate theatre where we perform every monday night at 8.30 (you should come!) – it was a bumper show with no less than 12 of our crew battling it out in three teams of four with a show that contained much treating and the occasional tricking (or ‘challenging’ as was the more politically correct term we went for) as we brought in props and microphones for sound effects and had some students dressed up as characters roaming around the location mingling with the masses and challenge rounds and even were privileged to have the lovely jess back with us as guest mc (come back jessie!!) and the beautiful and talented kaliya (SA’s got talent semi finalist and player candice’s daughter) and much much more…

the show started with a revived theatresports tradition from even before i started playing where each team chose their own name and came up with a 30 second introduction sing/dance/act of who they were to introduce themselves to the audience – our team combined two extreme art forms as we presented ourselves as the metal ballet starting with a balleting swan who was then beaten up with guitars in some metal mayhem before reverting back to ballet for a final graceful death…

we warmed up with a freestyle freezetag where actors freeze a scene and then tap one of the actors and assume their physical position and then start an entirely new scene which goes on and on for a lot of crazy laughs – after a montage of short fast-paced scenes including julius malema’s lifesize birdhouse (“how will they get inside when you’ve given it door handles?”) which may or may not explain why he failed woodwork at school, the actors were warm and the competition was well under way…

starting off with the much loved sign game, we witnessed an interview with a taxidermist with a penchant for birds, before being entertained by a very lively party attended by a gibberish speaking lady gaga, a slinky and film noir styled character

challenge rounds were scattered around the show and the first round involved one player from each team perfoming together in a scene where no-one was allowed to use any words containing the letter ‘s’ – when you did you ‘died’ and were replaced by another team member – after a while the ‘s’ became a ‘t’ and then finally an ‘e’ to completely mess with the actors (try that one at home) – our team dominated the challenge rounds but this ultimately didn’t help all that much as we scored 5 points for winning the round (whereas a hey-that’s-my-mom enthusiastic kaliya was handing out nepotistical points in the hundreds for a certain team)

the second challenge round saw three players up against each other in a corpse challenge (where if you ‘lose it’ and laugh you’re out) which kim sadly was the first to leave after being ordered to bring me a “gin and tonic, hold the tonic” and then being shouted at for not holding the tonic when he returned… then it was left to me and anne to keep a straight face which was made tougher by her characters nipple-grabbing tendencies – we then moved to questions only and survived a frenetic few lines there before anne finally losing it as we moved to rhyming couplets and anne whispering “what’s a rhyming couplet” to me as she returned defeated to her seat

the evening was littered with other games and challenges to teams in games which saw a radio play performed in a minute, a whole set of other team member cameos during the first scene of a musical and one scene which saw me playing a jacket to anne and john wearing ryan as a stole (which threatened to *cough* stole the show…) and a stunt double performed fight scene where kim and john did the hard fighting work for me and leon

the show ended with a movie fest of films containing ninjas which saw some interesting moments – the cranberries theme tune “you’ve got to let it ninja” and a slow motion presumed dead ninja onslaught, just two of the 467 movies contained on the dvd under everyone’s chair…

for me the best part of the show (apart from having my beautiful wife Valerie cheering me on from the audience) was the fact that we took chances, we risked, we tried new stuff and messed around with format – some of it really worked, other parts need some fine-tuning but as a group we are ready and very much excited to be taking theatresports forward into some new and exciting realms having had a pretty similar format since i started playing…

thankx to everyone who came and supported us – if you still haven’t been to check out a show, please make sure you make a motion to do so before we are turning 18 – more live and funnier than Whose Line Is It Anyway? And we NEVER let drew carey play in any of our games…

and this coming weekend we are running another beginner course in TS and so if you’ve always wanted to try your hand at some of the games we play and learn how to improvise (the irony, or is it?) then get hold of us and sign up before it’s too late.

[check us out at www.theatresports.co.za]