The company that made Honey and Clover followed up with this season's fashion anime, Paradise Kiss. Short but sweet, ParaKiss can be blamed for my sudden need to own a sewing machine. See, it follows the story of a group of young wanna-be fashion designers. It's a romantic, simple anime, decorated with stunning animation and queer edits.
It ended after only 12 episodes, and though I love the show, I can't imagine it will soak into my subconscious the way Honey and Clover did. I guess I write about it only to mark that today was the day I finished it. Still, it did introduce me to Tommy February6, one of my new favorite jPop singers. For more on who she is, go to: Tommy February 6 at Wikipedia.
In other news, last night I did my first UCB show. That is to say, I was a part of my first show at UCB that wasn't an Ex-Boom show. It was called Three Dollar Bill. It was a gay/gay-friendly performance showcase...that MTV ended up coming to. They were scouting for new talent for their gay network, Logo. Suzi and I performed the original draft of Be Skeptical, and it met with huge response. For those that have seen it before, remember dropping the umbrella? It almost destroyed the song; the laughter in the sold-out crowd was so loud I couldn't hear the music! I was so nervous before it began, since none of the other material in the show seemed similar to my campy, vulgar musical number. But after the show, one of the casting directors from Logo found me backstage -- she had seen me in '99 in Chicago. Her name was Blair -- she used to work for Second City, but frequented Improv Olympic and caught a few of my shows. Small world. I mean, I guess it's not. She was a comedian, after all, and there aren't that many places where we work.
I wish I could be hopeful about moments like this, where a casting director talks to me about my piece, or knows me from somewhere else, but to be honest, I'm worn out from all the times it happens and leads to nothing. Other than Boom...err, and Duece Bigalow 2, there's nothing I can point to in my comedy-life where I was cast in something that paid me. Make no mistake; I love performing, and I do it because I want to say something, or make people laugh. But whenever I'm confronted with the idea that it could be a Job, I get tense. In a way, I wish I could be told whether I'd ever get money for it again, so that I could simply relax and do shows, as opposed to wondering if what I've just said after a show was going to get me a job or not.