The longer I do improv the more I see people I know, or people I've preformed with on TV or in the media. It's gotten to the point that it happens at least once a week.

Years back I did a series of shows in Arizona, called The Secret Show. There was less of an audience for improv there than there is in Chicago, so we'd try to put up "event" shows. A band, a weird opening act, and a couple sets of improv. The opening act for our first show was a guy who had trained a rat to ride on a cat's back while the cat rode on a dog's back. They didn't do any tricks or anything, just stood there, stacked on top of each other. Their owner wore a purple gorilla costume and yelled into a megaphone about how we should all get along. It was a big hit.

Today I saw a video of the guy and his pets had made it to the front page of CNN.com (and Boint Boing too).

Mark: [via e-mail] Sad that the mouse is "Mousy" and the cat is "Kitty" but the dog is "Booger." What a bastard. We made you, homeless guy!

I remember being excited at first about booking these weird acts. We had an educational science group called 'the Physics Fun Bus, and a girl who bellydanced while her mother played the oboe (they weren't an act, we just talked them into doing it). It turned into a lot of work pretty fast, though. We were too nervous to contact local jump roping competitors and a senior citizen dance troupe, the Hot Flashes, turned us down.

In the end it all seemed like a big hassle. I was relieved to get back to Chicago where all I needed for an improv show was a couple chairs (and the chairs are optional).