Foz Gets Awkward With Collin Bullock

What a beautiful night we had last week at Foz the Hook’s Poison Valentine Pageant.  So romantic.

But all good things must end so other good things might take their place.  That is why Foz the Hook, your new favorite band, will be taking the stage this very night with our pal, Collin Bullock on his bill for Awkward Moments With Collin Bullock, a LIVE recording of his podcast by the same name.  Fantastic!

We presume that Collin will want to talk about all sorts of awkward moments that FtH has brought you over the last couple of years, including but not limited to…

The time Old Foz and Jason Earl Folks kissed each other on stage in front of everybody at Foz the Hook’s Poison Valentines Pageant on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.

That time I just talked about when Jason Earl Folks put on a cowboy hat and kissed Foz.

The time a couple sitting immediately in front of the stage wouldn’t stop talking, so Foz went out in the audience and sat with them during Whiskey What Done It.  That was last night, but it has happened before.

There was this one time that that thing happened, but there were two ladies (same table as #3), and they wouldn’t shut up.  When Foz sat down with them they gave him the old stink-eye and tried to continue their conversation.  They were bound and determined that they would not recognize the fact that they were sitting in the front row of a music show (full house of our usual fans, making their usual racket).  These ladies made sure to show me that I was the boorish interloper for sitting at their table and interrupting their conversation with a performance of music.  We all laughed at them, not with them.  Still, they were immune to the awkwardness of the situation.

So come out to Cole’s tonight, and see Awkward moments With Collin Bullock, featuring FtH, Mike Lebovitz, Chris Condren, Byron, Jacob Williams, and the two ladies in the front row who won’t shut up. 

The fun begins at 8 and goes to 10.  It will be recorded live, so be prepared to hear what your voice sounds like on a recording.

Poison Valentines - Part Deux!

Good morning, my lovelorn cuties!

The day you have been waiting for has arrived!  Can you stand the anticipation?  Tonight is the night!  Tonight it is really going to happen for you!  It is your turn to shine, my little heartbroken lonely-hearts. 

Are you going to meet someone special at Cole’s tonight?  Make that connection you have been craving?  Find that spark that brings light to your life?

Of course not.

Something much better will happen.  You will see Foz the Hook’s Poison Valentines Pageant!  It is the long-anticipated bombshell song-and-dance (no dancing) extravaganza that will jump-start your aching hearts, and then leave you awash in disgrace and self-recrimination. 

She left you?  Yeh, it’s probably because you’re a loser.  You’re the one who had to spend the rent money on Madden ’12, and she wasn’t some kind of video game dork-loving Lana Del Rey either (More on that in a later post). 

He had sex with you on the first date and never called again?  You told your little “joke” about having daddy issues, didn’t you?  Yep.  No use over-analyzing it.  You can’t take that one back.

That is why Foz the Hook created the Poison Valentine Pageant, and invited all of your best comedy friends to play along.

See Wild Bill Bullock, the Sax Man of Notre Dame.  His smoldering alto lines will drive you wild!

See The Duchess, Krystal Lafianza Pitzen, whose Booze-Flooze act stole your heart last Christmas!

See Rachel Taylor, The Audrey Hepburn of haggis chefs!

See Natalie Jose, the Patsy Cline of Patsy Cline tribute bands!  Her sizzling sideways glance will pitch you into cataracts of woozy wishings.  Wishings that, lets face it, will remain just that.  Come on.  Her and you?  She’s a classy lady, Cole’s.

Maria*.

So, meet us at Cole’s tonight at 9:00, order up a double anesthetic from Coleman Brice at the bar, and join Your Pals FtH, for the Poison Valentines Pageant!  See you there!

Maria Wojciechowski broke up with you, Cole’s.  She found a paying job in the suburbs, and will be giving her new sugar-room all sorts of her hilarious sweet stuff while you’re stuck in Logan Square with the likes of us.   Why do I have to be the one to tell you these things, Cole’s?  You’re a FREE show.  How did you ever get it through your numb skull that you could attract and hold on to a beautiful woman like Maria Wojo.  What is it with you, anyway?

Poison Valentines - The Poster!

Last night my heart melted when I first saw this amazing promotional art created for Foz the Hook by the brilliant Meredith Kachel.

FtH’s Poison Valentines Pageant is going to be a huge success! 

I hardly know where to start here.  First, the seed – and by that I mean germ of a seed:

Last week Meredith and I discussed some ideas for the artwork, and came up with a number of ideas based around the “movies” theme of the show.  The pageant will include a number of short romantic vignettes from famous movies, acted by Foz and The Ladies.  Then, as we wrapped up and headed for the bar, I said “Maybe think about a thing where there is a heart made of snakes and an adorable mouse with a valentine and the snakes are going to eat the mouse.”  Meredith immediately lit up, and while she said something like, “yeah, I’ll play with that too,” she clearly meant “This thing I’m going to do is going to be effing amazing.”

Now we have a sort of ingenious allegorical comment about love and expectations, and hopes, and getting devoured by predators.  "Poor little mousey.  I wuv U too… Gulp!"  See, Mousey and his predators truly love each other.  They just have their own definitions of love. 

Then we have the choices of predator for each performer.  Sure, Olde Foz is a buzzard, but he also wears glasses and parts his hair on the same side as me.  Patrick is a noble looking falcon with sideburns.  Larry is a jolly wolf with a beard.  Even the guest performers are well chosen.  Krystal is a blonde cat (or maybe a lynx); Bill is a scorpion as one would expect a sax player to be; Rachel is the Black Widow (Mike Ortiz says she is going to love that); and Maria Wojo is a (singing) frog with a mop of stylish blonde locks; most importantly, Natalie Jose is a badger, and NOT A SKUNK!  Keep saying that!  Never, ever suggest to Natalie that this is a skunk.  It’s not!  It’s an awesome and powerful badger…..  Not a skunk!  Doesn’t look like a skunk at all. 

I can guarantee that FtH will want to play with Natalie Jose again, so keep repeating that the poster represents her as a lovely, powerful, and flattering badger.

After that, the poster tells you where to go and when.   I don’t know what else I could have asked for.

Thank you, Meredith!  The rest of you should go to Meredith’s web site now and see what you can pay her to draw for you.

Where Art Comes From

As you know, Your Pals in FtH are impresarios of the arts.  At various times we have represented local geniuses in the areas of photography, music, comedy, and international security consulting. 

Well, a few weeks ago Old Foz was warming up for a show with a little Martini (twist of course), and thinking about love, when it hit him that the thing we needed for the huge Foz the Hook’s Poison Valentines Pageant was a poster.  A poster!  Yes!  If we had a poster, people might know that we were doing a show.  Our poster could even tell them when and where the show might be, such as “at Coles,” or “Wednesday night, February 8, before Cole’s Comedy Open Mic,” or even list featured performers, like “Rachel Taylor, Bill Bullock, etc, etc.” 

All we needed was an artist with a hand for drawing to make the poster.  Rats!  Where on earth will we find an artist at Cole’s?

That’s when we found out about Meredith Kachel.

You know Meredith.  She made the award-winning* video to Cameron Esposito’s world famous Lesbian Person Rant.  (What do you mean “Which one?” , THIS ONE!).

Anyway, a drink or two later and Meredith was absolutely in to drawing a poster for the show.  I can’t show you the poster yet, but I will soon.  In the meantime I have included Meredith’s take on Alexander Gardner’s photograph of President Abraham Lincoln, taken in Washington, D.C., on 8 November, 1863 – commonly known as The Gettysburg Lincoln. 

Sweet, huh?

Anyway, tonight Meredith and I will talk about the hot new poster, and as soon as I see it, I will share it with you, Internet.

Where will Meredith and I be tonight?  Why, we’ll be with you, at Cole’s Comedy Open Mic with Cameron Esposito and Adam Burke and Foz the Hook, and You!  We play at 9:00, and the comics make jokes at 9:30.

* Meredith’s video won the Foz’s Favorite Video For the Time Being award for 2011.