Magic Meathands

Caturday: Sponge Loving Kitteh Edition

I love the reaction shot at the very end.

There’s a Magic Meathands show tonight where we’re teaming up with the improv group In Rare Form. One of our fans loves both of our groups, so he conspired to get us to perform together on the same night. See? Dreams do come true!

At The Comics Observer:

This Saturday’s Tag Team Comedy Show with In Rare Form

Our monthly Tag Team Comedy Show features us pairing with a different improv comedy act. This time, we’re hitting the stage of the Mary Pickford Studio with In Rare Form. Like us, they have been performing at M.i.’s Westside Comedy Theater recently, as well as venues in Burbank, Hollywood and beyond.

The show starts at 8 PM. Tickets are $7. Don’t miss it! RSVP on Facebook.

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Caturday: Fast Exiting Kitteh Edition

Music fans: Ten on the Tenth is happening NOW! You have until tomorrow at 9 AM Pacific / 12 noon Eastern to post 10 songs that fit the theme of love.

Speaking of now, tonight is a fully improvised comedy show with the Magic Meathands (including me!) and Jump Start Comedy at the Mary Pickford Studio in West LA. Tickets are $7 ($3 for kids 12 and under), and the show starts at 8 PM.

Meanwhile, at The Comics Observer:

This Saturday: Family Friendly Improv Comedy with the Magic Meathands and Jump Start

Jump Start (l-r): Steve Lurie, Chris Moore, Kendra Nicholson, Craig Woods, Julie Martin

The Jump Start comedy ensemble from the South Bay of Los Angeles is a fun group of improvisers that joins us monthly for a family friendly show at the Mary Pickford Studio. We’re doing it again this Saturday night at 8 PM. Tickets are only $7 ($3 for children 12 and under).

They’ve been our partners for this show for a couple of years now, and it’s always amazing to watch another group in action. We’ve gotten to see new members join and grow, and the group as a whole get stronger and stronger. I hear tell there’s another Jump Start/Magic Meathands show in the works that will be in their neck of the woods. Details to come!

But in the meantime, get yourself ready for a fun time with our two groups at the Mary Pickford Studio this Saturday night. It’s probably our most popular show. We keep things network TV clean, so you can bring the kids. And we keep things fresh enough for adults.

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Caturday: Playing Catch Edition

Here’s a round-up of me on the internet this week:

The Comics Observer launched this week:

Meanwhile, Ten on the Tenth gets tweaked: Announcing the Updated Rules! If a day isn’t enough time for you to think up 10 songs that fit a given theme, you’ll like how it will be run this month and going forward.

And the improv comedy team The Magic Meathands have some Ch-ch-ch-changes to our performance schedule. Short version: We’ve got a show next Saturday night at the Mary Pickford Studio in West Los Angeles, but we say good-bye for now to our monthly Friday show at the Westside Comedy Theater.

Oh and if you’re in Hollywood this weekend, you can go buy some of Joni Mitchell’s furniture. No kidding!

Sorting Some Things Out

Yes I actually took a weekday off from blogging yesterday. Were you lonely? Did you miss me?

I converted CoreyBlake.com into the current blog format back in April 2008. For a while, I mostly blogged on a “whenever” schedule (sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes a few times a month). But thanks to the encouragement of my friend and coach Cindy Marie Jenkins, I committed to blogging Monday through Friday. Since November 2010 that’s just what I’ve done (OK, with the exception of a couple days off for Thanksgiving in November 2010, the lost week in January 2011 from a computer crash, and yesterday). A little over a year isn’t really that long, but for the Internet, I think it’s worth mentioning.

If you follow this site, you know that a good percentage of my blogging shifted to covering comic books, graphic novels and the like. My ongoing work with Dig Comics inspired a new direction in my career(s) that has included comics punditry, journalism, consulting and generally spreading the good word of sequential art in its myriad forms. It’s an area that continues to fascinate me. So I’m creating a new site/blog that will be dedicated to what I’ve been doing in that realm here and more. Right now, it looks to be on track for a February 1st launch. I’m very excited and have lots of ideas for the site’s future. I’m starting at what I’m hoping is a manageable level and hope to build up as I’m able. So as I continue to work behind-the-scenes on that, comics coverage here at CoreyBlake.com will take a breather and then resume at the new site next month.

Meanwhile, my performing with the comedy troupe Magic Meathands continues. We do fully improvised shows in and around Los Angeles, and also do community outreach shows for audiences that aren’t able to come to us. I perform with them every chance I get and am also running their blog, which generally updates every Monday. In between posts about upcoming shows (we perform at least 3 times a month), I’m hoping to start spotlighting members, some of the groups that do shows with us, and some of the non-profit organizations that invite us to do shows for them.

Earlier this month, I also launched something for music fans. Ten on the Tenth had a great first month for an idea that popped in my head 5 days before it went live. Based on some feedback I’ve gotten, I’ll be tinkering it a little for February. If you missed it, how it works is I announce a theme (January was “new”) and then on the 10th of every month, people post their list of 10 songs within that theme. Watch for February’s theme to be announced around the 8th.

So with all of that (and more ideas still percolating), what happens with CoreyBlake.com? The frequency of blogging here will probably drop to two to three times a week so I can juggle the other stuff. There will be some self-promotion but that gets boring (for me too), so I’ll also talk about things that catch my eye, and maybe getting back to some of the silly blogging I was trying out in 2008. Otherwise, we’ll just have to see what catches people’s attention. Heck, I’ll even take requests. If you’d like to see me blog about something, let me know.

I’m excited to see where all of this will lead. If you’re still reading, thank you very much for being so interested in what I’m doing. I stopped reading after the first paragraph, so kudos to you.

Jump Start 2012 with Improv Comedy!

Get it? “Jump start”? Jump Start? Huh?

Well if you don’t get it now, you will this Saturday night, 8 PM, at the Mary Pickford Studio when Jump Start starts off a two-fer night of fully improvised comedy, followed by us (the Magic Meathands, silly!). Tickets are $7 ($3 for 12 and under).

Find out more about the show on Facebook. And while you’re over there, why not Like the Magic Meathands Facebook page. Then you’ll see all of our show invites, get special status updates fresh from the Meathand factory, and meet and interact with other fans as well as some of the Meathands themselves!

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Improvisers’ New Years Resolution: To Make You Laugh

If we make you laugh in 2012, we’ll have done our job. So we can do this one of two ways. Either you can come to one of our shows and enjoy a fully-improvised hour of comedy based on your suggestions, or we can follow you home from work one night and do a show in your living room. Look, I’m not threatening you, but one way might leave you with a broken TV. Not due to any violence on our part, we’re just kind of clumsy.

So what will it be? You can think it over. No need to rush into a decision. After all, you’ve got three opportunities this month to save your coffee table.

Here are the details of our first shows of 2012, straight from the freshly-updated Upcoming Shows page:

M.i.’s Westside Comedy Comedy Theater, Friday, January 6th
also featuring The Waterbrains and Mission: IMPROVable
Featured Meathands: TBA
Westside Comedy Theater
1323-A Third Street Promenade (in alley between 3rd and 4th Street)
Santa Monica, CA 90401
8:00pm; Admission $10; Rated:
Show Rating: Late Night

Family-Friendly Comedy Night, Saturday, January 14th
with special guest Jump Start Comedy Improv!
Featured Meathands: TBA
Mary Pickford Studio
8885 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 559-8868
8:00pm; Admission $7 ($3 for kids 12 & under); Rated:
Show Rating: Network Television

Tag Team Comedy, Saturday, January 21st
with special guest!
Featured Meathands: TBA
Mary Pickford Studio
8885 Venice Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 287-3700
8:00pm; Admission $7; Rated:
Show Rating: Late Night

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

New Year, New Laughs

The New Year is coming! And if the Mayans are right, we’ve only got until December 21 to live it up. Better start scheduling your good times now. We’ve got quite a few planned for you throughout 2012 because if we’re going down, we’re going down laughing!

Our first show of 2012 brings us back to the Westside Comedy Theater, right off the Third Street Promenade in downtown Santa Monica. We hit the stage at 8 PM on Friday January 6th to do a fully improvised show combining short-form games and long-form scenarios all made up on the spot based on suggestions you give us. Tickets are $10 for the whole night. If you hang around after our show, you’ll get to experience two other improv groups, The Waterbrains and Mission: IMPROVable. Each group has their own format and style, so you’re in for a real treat.

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Happy Holidays from the Magic Meathands

Thank you all to those who came out for our last set of shows of the year! We had great turnouts and really fun shows! This whole year has been a banner run for us, and we couldn’t do it without you.

We have a Comedy Outreach Project show this Thursday for a boys’ home, and then we’re putting 2011 to bed. The holidays are a wonderful time for giving but sadly there are people in need all throughout the year. That’s why we do Comedy Outreach shows all year long! If you are part of a non-profit organization that provides for those less fortunate in the Los Angeles and surrounding communities, or know someone who is, and you think they could use some laughter, please drop us a line. We’ll arrange to come to your group and provide a safe, fun and content-appropriate show that will bring out joy, laughter and creativity.

Happy Holidays!

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.