Well, Distracted Friends, I’m pleased to say that my office, recognizing that it’s an opportunity we have only once every four years, gives us the day off.  That’s right.  No work for Brains on Fire today!  YAY!

Unfortunately, I’ve spent the day with Distracted Globe Associate Artist/Sound Snogger, Rick, taking care of him in his now post-wisdom tooth extraction state.  That’s right.  What a crappy way to spend a Leap Day, eh?  For him anyway.  I’m getting an awful lot done so far.  Of course, he gets Lortab… so at least he’s got that going for him.

And, on the subject of excruciating pain, it also occurred to me that Leap Day is always the same year as election year.  And you know what that means?  That’s an extra day that we have to deal with all that election crap.  If it were any other year, we could shave off a day of all the posturing and blah blah blah-ing.  But no.  We give them a whole extra 24 hours to yack and pick and just plain be a big pain in our collective American Ass.  Of course, since this year’s candidates started campaigning sometime in 1968, it wouldn’t really have made a huge difference this time around.  But still.  It’s the priciple of the thing.

At any rate, here’s hoping your Leap Day is better than Rick’s!  And while you’re at it, why don’t you leave in the comments how you think Leap Day would best be celebrated or commemorated or whatever.  I mean, really, as a people, I don’t think we do nearly enough to recognize such a simultaneously interesting and completely useless holiday.

This article gives a whole new meaning to "When Irish Eyes are Smiling."  It’s a pretty toothy grin, this one.

By the way… don’t forget to sign Proposition 3-17. 

Tuesday night we had a Distracted Globe huddle where we did some serious strategic planning.  Lots of thinking about this summer and thinking about the future and all that sort of exciting stuff.  We got pretty deep.  Much discussion revolved around sock puppets doing obscene things, cognitive labio-dental fricatives (not as dirty as it sounds), life as a lampshade floosy… we are dangerous when we sit around the Tromsness’ kitchen table.

Of course, we did some long term strategic thinking (Jayce gave us all homework!).  We also talked about auditions for Taming of the Shrew, The Bear and Man of Destiny, we talked about improv and dates and efforts to raise a little extra dough to help fund the summer’s activities.  There are some big things coming this summer.  And we can’t wait to tell you more about them… but we will.  Cuz that’s how it is.  HA!  There are a few things to nail down here and there.  But boy howdy, things are getting ca-razy!

Also, it’s worth mentioning that there are some VERY funny touring comedians making their way through Greenville at The Warehouse on March 8th.  It’s only $15 for three comics… so give ‘em a call (235-6948) and get ready for some giggles.

But hey, in the meanwhile, we’ve got a little time before our next round of improv shows, so give it a little think and let us know what you’d like to see this next time around.  Who knows… we just might do it! 

I know Jared was taking notes on some of the hysterical things that were said at this weekend’s installment of "The Brightest Heaven of Invention" - our improv workshop series. Maybe he’ll post some later. But in the meanwhile, I wanted to share a few photos from this week’s relationship-based class.

Well, the Midnight Hags took the stage this weekend as part of The Warehouse Theatre’s V-Day event - benefiting The Greenville Rape Crisis and Child Abuse Center. It was a great time! The Vagina Monologues were wonderful, the audience was energized, the Hags were in great form… and we were even joined by Jared the Unnatural Hag and Kim the Guest Hag. Enjoy some fond memories of this weekend’s festivities!

Tonight… starting at 8:43pm standard time, there will be a total eclipse of the moon.  It’ll be at its peak from 10:01-10:51.  How cool is that?  I love those big celestial events.  Oh, but hey, does anyone else read "total eclipse of the moon" and hear music from Little Shop of Horrors in their head?  Or maybe some Bonnie Tyler?  I can’t stop it. But still… I’m kinda excited about sitting on my balcony tonight, staring at the sky.  I hope it’s not cloudy.

At any rate… speaking of mooning… or rather… having absolutely nothing to do with mooning… this weekend, The Midnight Hags are making their triumphant return for one night only.  Saturday night, following a benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues (8:00 Saturday at The Warehouse, benefiting The Greenville Rape Crisis and Child Abuse Center), we’ll bring on some of that improv voodoo that we do do pretty well.  10:15ish (probably closer to 10:30, who knows) at The Warehouse Theatre.  Our tickets are pay-what-you-can with a $5 minimum, and our proceeds will also go to the grccac.  There’s nothing quite like a whole lot of estrogen on stage… so I hope you’ll come out this weekend! 

And enjoy the eclipse tonight.  I’m kinda surprised no one has decided it’s a sign of the apocalypse yet.  Hmm.  Maybe Huckabee could say that it’s God punishing us for not voting for him.  Or heck, Hillary might even be willing to try that at this point.  I really should be a campaign strategist, don’t you think?  Well… if it does end up being the apocalypse… then we won’t see you Saturday.  But if we survive… we’ll see you this weekend!

You know, I’m not a big biography or autobiography reader.  I feel like I get enough reality in my reality, so I’ll just go ahead and read fiction.  So I’m not exactly a memoir conoisseur.  But here’s an interesting book that allows even the shortest attention span to explore a memoir.  It’s six-work memoirs.  How frickin’ lazy is that?  But then I thought about it some more… and it’s kinda neat!  I mean, it’s not easy to boil things down that much, you know?  How very improv, right?  Single specific offer that gives some interesting information as a starting point.  You really can learn a lot about a person in six words.  Just think about the scenes that could come to life if we started with a politician’s six word memoir!  Dick Cheney could be "Helped start war, shot old guy."  Dennis Kucinich could be "Too short, idealistic and new age."  Mike Gravel could be "Who the hell is this guy?"  Mike Huckabee could be "Jesus loves me more than you."

What about you?  What would your six word memoir be? 

Last night was our third week of improv workshops… and much fun was had by all! This week we focused on scene structure, so some great stories and characters arose. Check it out!

By the way… The SC Children’s Theatre opens their production of Pinocchio tonight - running this weekend and next weekend.  And, while we have many friends working on that show, one of the faces in particular looks REALLY familiar to us.  So we hope you’ll go check out the show!

Now that we have passed the mother of all fake holidays, it’s time to gear up for the next REAL holiday… and that is, of course, St. Patrick’s Day.  Now, the good folks at Guinness are working hard for Irish-Americans (and people who love Irish-Americans, or green beer, or days off work) and they are trying to petition congress to make St. Patrick’s day an official holiday.  Brilliant!  So now that you know about this worthy cause, what can you do to help?  Well, if you’re at least 21, you can head over to proposition317.com and sign the petition.  If you’re under 21, you can forward the info to your elders and tell them to get on it!  Finally… in a time of such division and political unrest, a cause we can all rally around!  They need 1 million signatures in order to submit the petition to congress… and they’re aiming for that by midnight on the 16th… so we’ve got a month.  Get crackin’!

And hey… while we’re at it… are there any other holidays you think deserve a little more attention?  Leave them in the comments!