Along with the packed house of peers there was one outsider in the group, a reporter from the LA Weekly. He did a piece about the show and featured a few of the winners. He rightfully mentioned my old teammate Echo Kellum for all of his success. Well earned success at that; it’s rare to meet someone so humble, funny, and kind, he really is a great dude.

I also had the last work in the article, which is always fun. Check it out, it’s a great piece.

http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2012/08/del_close_awards_iowest.php

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/564355/zoo-book

Recently I auditioned for an iO West House Sketch Team, I won! then I realized nobody on my team knew Photoshop so I decided to learn. A little. A very little. So some patchwork from the the internet, MS Paint, and mostly Gimp I made our posters. Here is the player version:

I’ll post the commercial into my videos page when it’s released.

@JessicaLee says; “(it’s the) Best $1 you’ll spend in 2012!”

@mikeschramm (of TIPOAA) said; “Colin drew me a picture and I drank some beers.”

The rules are as such (a) nobody can request anything (b) I’ll draw whatever I feel like drawing and (c) I will put your money to good use.

My fiancee’s profile picture is here on a blanket in the park, this fills it out:

This next guy is looking up in his profile picture, think that explains it:

This is Mike Schramm writer for TUAW, Joystiq and podcast superstar from TIPOAA:

Next is my friend from Hawaii, and somehow Denver Bronco fan:

This guy said “Paint me like one of your French girls,”;

This guy likes basketball, comedy, and corgi dogs:

She owns a dog:

This dude is from Texas and likes sports:

This bro crashed his motorcycle and was all in stitches and broken shit for a long time:

Lately though I’ve been doing my own research about different disorders, ones that I had never heard of before. My new “favorite” is reduplicative paramnesia. I won’t lie, a big reason is the name is overwhelmingly fun to say, it pops out of your mouth with the same ease a Snickers goes pops into your mouth.

Rather than trying to explain it just go to the link above, afterall, I studied Music Industry in college so my explanation would fall well short. While your interest is piqued check THESE out.

This year though, I am personally nominated for “Hardest Working Intern” and my team “First World Problems” is up for Best Non-Harold Team. It’s pretty unbelievable. We are nominated with teams that are hugely influential on my style of improv and shows that I would gladly go watch any time of any day. When people make that stupid comment about how much of an honor it is to be nominated I sort of get it, and yes, I realize full well that this is not the Academy Awards – it’s an award show that was created 5 years ago as, what I imagine, was an excuse to get the community together for a fun night.

John Conroy created the event and I offered to help film things this year, or at least organize a film crew. Because I threw my hat in the ring he pulled me in and we sat one day over an afternoon beer and discussed the awards, the silliness of some of them and the teams/players. It was fun, so I took the next morning and wrote down some jokes about the categories and emailed them over. The next day we shot Damien Fahey and Grasie Mercedes, reading the script that I co-wrote. It was pretty awesome.

This is the result:

What I really wanted to say here though is this, if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of taking improv classes, if you’ve ever wanted a little release from the daily grind, or you want to start acting, or you just enjoy laughing – run! Run to iO West or a training center near you. DO NOT HESITATE. My only single regret is that I did not start sooner.

An overwhelming majority of my best friends have come from this past year. They are smart, funny, and together we’re all working towards greater industry goals. The networking aside – you’ve got nothing to lose and an entirely new world to gain.

DO IT! MAKE THINGS UP!!!

You can read about him here.