2% Club

My mom just sent me this survey, where the last thing you are supposed to think of is a red hammer. Apparently 98% of people think of a red hammer at the end of this survey, but 2% of people think of different things. My mom and I are part of the 2% Club. She thought of an orange wrench, because she had been plumbing all day. I thought of a yellow wrench because I had been working in the theatre all day. I know you want to hear about it, so on we go.

It was a pretty easy day at the Eisenhower Auditorium. Or rather, it would have been easy if we had done things correctly. I have reached a point in my working where the big bosses are trusting me with more and more tasks. I know my way around, which keys unlock which locks, where all the lights hang, and how to reach the charts. Unfortunately, that means I am being trusted with unsupervised tasks.

I was put in charge of cabling the second electric, which basically means I had to go along and plug the lights in. Having never been in charge before, I went along and did the job I always do, not realizing there were two other jobs that need to be done at the same time. Along comes Gary, just as mad as can be that all the lights are plugged in, but nothing is labeled. To be fair, I had begun labeling the wires, but the job was taking longer because I hadn't labeled as I went. After he broke all the connection, he made us start the wiring all over again and label as we went. There's twenty minutes wasted right there. Unfortunately, Gary hadn't paid attention to the configuration of things, and we ended up with an extra plug on one end and no plug on the other end. He remedied this by bringing in a whole separate cable for the lonely unplugged light.

Margo has never been in charge of stacking the x-ray lights on their cart, but she was put in charge of it this time. Is Gary just getting lazy? She and I watched Susan stack the other cart, and we followed whatever they were doing. Unfortunately, one of the lights near the bottom was so slightly off-center that by the time we reached the top of the stack (about 5 lights up), the lights were toppling at a rapid rate. Susan didn't want to unstack everything and start over, so we put the safety cable on and let them be. Big mistake for putting them back up the next day. Susan took off the safety cable, and just about crushed herself underneath a stack of lights. We had to unstack the whole thing right there while she held them up instead of doing things the easy way.

After last week's fiasco of taking the chairs off and lining them up in the wrong order, a 45-minute fiasco, I'm surprised Susan and Gary trust us with anything. They never learn.

Bo Burnam in Concert

Not sure if you've heard, but there is a young comedian by the name of Bo Burnam who is taking the internet by force. While he is most famous for the song "Helen Keller is my perfect woman," I prefer "New Math." I find him quite hilarious, but some may find his humor crude or irreverent, so exercise caution if you feel the need to look him up.

I was lucky I even discovered this free concert. It was featured in Penn State's student newspaper on page 6 in a brief notice of the day's events. How could this possibly be? A great comedian like Bo Burnam on page 6? The article said he'd be on for about an hour from 9:30 to 10:30-ish, admission was free, and the SPA was expecting around 500 students to attend.

Immediately, I called James and Jacob to tell them we would be going to that concert. Of course, the boys made me late so we had to stand in the very back. More than 500 people showed up, so not enough seats were available and a lot of people were standing in the back.

I laughed so hard. He is even more funny in person. The highlight of the show was a man walking in fifteen minutes late and taking a seat in the third row. Bo stopped what he was playing to ask "Where were you?" "Uh...across campus," said the man. Bo replied, "That's really vague. Where were you?" "In the Willard Building," said the man. Bo replied, "Across campus? That's, like, across the street." (Willard is practically across the street.) "So what were you doing in the Willard Building?" "Rehearsing," said the man. Bo replied, "Rehearsing what?" "Improv," said the man. "Rehearsing improv? Dude, you don't rehearse improve. That's the point." I had a good laugh throughout, but especially at this point. Bo continued on his rant about this man showing up late because he was across the street rehearsing improv.

My second favorite part was when he looked over his should, gasped, jumped, and pointed to his shadow. "I thought it was a black man." Looking around, we realized there were not actually any black people in the audience, which he pointed out later in one of his songs. "Now just the black people sing it..." There were five second of laughter, followed by, "Guess I'm not popular with the minorities."



After the show, in which Bo Burnam played all our favorite songs, he did a little meet and greet with the audience. I got to meet him long enough for my five second photo shoot and a few sentences about his comfort level with being touched by strangers. He's fine with it, but his girlfirend might mind. Bo is much taller in person. He doesn't look so tall on the internet, but he's a good six and a half feet tall. You can tell by how far he had to bend over just to get in the same picture with me.

It was a good night and I had a great time.