the t dot

I haven't been in Toronto since I was 14. I'm really enjoying my time here, and the 1/8th of the city I've seen so far. I hope to see more before I leave. It's a really nice, clean, hip Canadian city. And the CN Tower looks like it's from space. Which is hilarious.

The ProjectPROJECT Combustion festival is blazing along. I did my first improv scene in Toronto ever yesterday as part of the "blind date" portion of the show with this nice guy from Winnipeg. Everyone here is super lovely and there seems to be a really healthy improv scene here, which warms my heart.

Also, the Comedy Bar is great. I'm so happy to be part of the first few shows at this theater. It's not finished yet and reminds me a lot of what it was like at The Magnet at the very beginning, performing in a theater that wasn't totally done. There's so much potential energy stored up in places like Comedy Bar before they're done and that's a great atmosphere to perform in.

It's so great to be back in Canada watching Canadian improv. I got to watch AKA last night. They are so mind-blowingly inspiring. Such tight, good improv with a very unique artistic perspective. When I grow up, I want to be just like them. BnB are playing with AKA tonight for our second Toronto show. What a great lineup. And what a great reward for me to get to watch them again after Kaitlin and I hopefully have a good set.

Wednesday's show was pretty hugely fun. I was playing my interpretation of a pretty well known Canadian song writer who I happen to enjoy, and Kaitlin was a much younger girl friend. While trying to write another hit song in our failing coffee house, everything kind of collapsed around us. The third character in the scene was the unseen but felt presence of David Geffen looming over everything. I had a super good amount of fun with it.

OK, on to some informational business:
Calgarians! You can pre-reserve tickets for our June 5th show at:

tickets@kinkonauts.com

Just e-mail them with your name and the amount of tickets you want and they will be reserved for you at the Box office.

Also - here's a cool article about the combustion fest that features a HUGE photo of us and no text info about us at all. Weird.

Finally, some nice pics from Toronto so far. Shows and just hanging out with comedians:

This is our first meal in Toronto, at an awesome sushi place on Bloor St. near the comedy bar. We're here with Renee and Alistair, who we're on tour with as !nstant Theater, Amber, from Atlanta who is here with Renee as The Doug Dank project and with Kayla and Aaron from AKA improv.






Here I am in front of Toronto's Second City. I've never been to a Second City before so I totally geeked out. This was taken on Wedensday by Aaron from AKA. We walked around the city the whole day and talked about life and art. It was totally fun.








Here are some adorable pics from our Wednesday show. I always love it when we make out in our BnB shows.

and they're off

Wow. Of course it's two thirty in the morning my last day in New York for about three months. I have to wake up in four hours. I'm currently uploading a bunch of pictures to my computer and doing some last minute room prep for my sub letter.

I can honestly say that I'm really worn out. And this four hours of sleep won't help make me more awake either. But, I am so incredibly excited. Kaitlin and I had a great show on Thursday that everyone really seemed to enjoy. The improv was very funny but also nice and sad and focused. It went over quite well at the Magnet, which we certainly both consider one of our homes. For me, playing with Alistair for the first time as well was very entertaining. Onwards and upwards.

Can't wait to see what people think of the show in Toronto. Can't wait.

J'aime le Magnet

For Louie, performing at the Magnet is second nature; for me, it's something I have heart palpatations about. Since I am a visitor here (though the lovely Alex Marino welcomes me with open arms), I'm always worried about making a good impression. By extension, I'm also worried about propping Mr. Pearlman up, because it's his theatre and I don't want to make him look bad.

So, for the first five minutes of our inaugural tour performance last night at Ampers&nd, I was scared (that Louie's voice was zapped from Coney Island roller coasters and repeated warm ups didn't help). But then I remembered that I love Louie, and he loves me, and we'd be alright. And voila: We were! It was fifteen minutes of bliss. Laughter and kisses. Scratchy voices and sandwich metaphors! Romance and cuteness. We've cornered the market on such. So watch out, other cute things and sandwiches!

Every show we do is something I cherish, like a little gem or a tiny show-baby. I'm dropping show-babies all over this continent. Adopt, dammit.

New NYC Date Added - Revised tour dates

Hey guys. Just got an offer to do Ampers &nd at the Magnet this Sunday as a warm-up for our tour kickoff later on in the week.

So as it stands:

05/18 @ 8pm - NYC - Ampers &nd at Magnet Theater
5/22 @ 7pm - NYC - Magnet Theatre (w/Kitchen Party)
5/28 @ 8pm - Toronto - Comedy Bar (Combustion Festival)
5/30 @ 9:30pm - Toronto - Comedy Bar (Combustion Festival)
6/2 @ 8pm - Regina - Globe Theatre (w/!nstant Theatre and General Fools)
6/3 - TBA
6/5 @ 7:30 PM - Calgary - Dancer's Studio West (w/!nstant Theatre and The Kinkonauts)
6/6 @ 11pm - Edmonton - Varscona Theatre (w/!nstant and Rapid Fire Theatre)
6/7 @ 11pm - Edmonton - Varscona Theatre

Proper Vancouver Dates TBA!

More info on the Calgary gig.

New news! The 6/5 Calgary Dancer's Studio West show will be at 7:30, with doors at 7PM.

The address:

2007 - 10 Avenue SW
Calgary AB

Look at the handy locational graphic from DSW's website!

Another confirmed date!

It's a new date. Drumroll, please...

6/5 @ TBA - Calgary - Dancers Studio West! (w/Kinkonauts and !nstant)

Be there, or be square!

a brief history

Gosh. A tour blog. Exciting. Especially considering I haven't updated my actual blog in months. I've been making the excuse that my life has been going really well, and I haven't wanted to stop to retrospect. But this tour. Well. It really does warrant a blog. The tour is sort of a crazy, new, cool thing for Kaitlin and I to be doing.

Buckshot N Benny started because Kaitlin and I were living in the same town (NYC) for the first half of 2006. We were friends from college, in Vancouver. Kaitlin was a freshman when I was a senior (sorry to our Canadian writers for throwing such Yankee terms at you). We felt like we both had a lot in common, were becoming nice friends, and then, right when our friendship was going to become pretty concrete and stable, I moved to New York. I spent my first few years there with my mouth hanging open and in a daze. It was magnificent and terrifying, all at once. Those were the years that Kaitlin was going through the whole University thing.

We kept in touch for a few years, knowing there was something special about our friendship, so I was pretty excited when Kaitlin came to NYC in 2006 to intern at Spin. At the same time, she took a class with the great improv guru Armando Diaz at the comedy theater where I work - The Magnet. There's this awesome show there called Ampers &nd that features rotating improv duos. Many people who don't normally get to work together team up to do a duo and stretch their improv skills a little bit. We signed up for a slot, just because we thought it would be fun to do a little bit of improv together while she was there. We practiced with my buddy Shannon directing us and had a pretty good time. But something happened during our show. The performance ended up feeling really good for us. Meaningful and fun. We had some sort of advanced chemistry that I don't think either of expected.

So, with Kaitlin moving back to Vancouver, we did something pretty silly. We vowed to keep going. We made this decision that we were going to do a show whenever we were in the same city together. We've done the Vancouver improv fest two years in a row and people seem to dig us. We did a Magnet Mixer in NYC the spring of 07. And we broke into a lounge at UBC and performed for friends in December of 06.

But now we're going on tour. I want some of these places in Canada to see Ampers &nd/Magnet Style improv who perhaps haven't seen it yet. I hope they dig our style. I want to have great shows with Kaitlin. We've actually only done 8 shows over the last 3 years as Buckshot N Benny. This tour will show us if we can keep the special feeling between us, doing a bunch of shows all quickly in a row. I want to see parts of Canada that I've never seen before with friends I really like. I kind of feel like I'm coming back to Canada and bringing some presents with me.

While continuing my activities in the city that never sleeps - teaching and performing with my new favorites The Story Pirates, video editing high school plays, teaching adorable teenagers improv, performing around the city with my Magnet house team the Yes Andersens, with my amazing NYC comedy partner Angela as After School Music Club, and in my little ukulele shows... whoo, that's a lot - I've had this nagging feeling for the last few months in the back of my head. Am I doing enough for the tour? Neither Kaitlin or I has ever organized anything like this before. I know that I need to e-mail my friend Becky back about making buttons for us. I need to set a time for our Calgary gig with the Kinkonauts at Dancers Studio West. It's a lot of work and is hard to all keep straight.

I hope that by the time our tour kicks off on May 23rd - only two weeks away - that everything will be good to go. I have a feeling I'll be working until then to have it all come together. Then, ready or not, I'm really excited about getting on the road and seeing where Buckshot N Benny takes Kaitlin and I next.

Hey, It's Tour Time!

Hey Kids,

So Buckshot N Benny is going on tour (Finally! Says you. We couldn't agree more). This here's where we're going to keep you all updated on the antics of our tour, including the fun people we meet, the photos we take, and the antics that will ensue.

As a primer, here are our tour dates and show locations (where available at this point). We're so excited to get out there and to see you. And you. And YOU.

5/22 @ 8pm - NYC - Magnet Theatre (w/Kitchen Party)
5/28 @ 8pm - Toronto - Comedy Bar (Combustion Festival)
5/30 @ 9:30pm - Toronto - Comedy Bar
6/2 @ 8pm - Regina - Globe Theatre (w/!nstant Theatre and General Fools)
6/3 - TBA
6/5 - TBA
6/6 @ 11pm - Edmonton - Varscona Theatre (w/!nstant and Rapid Fire Theatre)
6/7 @ 11pm - Edmonton - Varscona Theatre

...and more to come!

So stay tuned, and remember that we love each other (and you).

XO BNB