The What

The invitations are out. No turning back now.

The thing about the invitations is there isn't a lot of room to really explain what it is you're doing, so in the next few posts I figured explain a little more about the core questions - the whos and whats and whys of this conceded little enterprise of mine.

So tonight, it's the "what." If you show up to The Grand Theater around 9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 11, what can you expect?

For starters, my sister Katie has been kind enough to agree to tend bar. I have a tentative OK from the Grand folks to set up a small bar in the concession stand, with a few free drinks and my own home brew as the offerings. We'll have music playing through the cavernous and gorgeous old auditorium of The Grand. Whether or not it's live music is still something I'm trying to nail down, but there will be something.

If you've never been to The Grand, check out www.grandmovietheater.com. The story of this theater is remarkable - a few business owners who hated to see a historic theater die poured their sweat and passion into the project, and their success has both been well deserved and well beyond what anyone had hoped. The Grand Theater Board are an inspiration and I'm humbled at the venue, even if it is as intimidating as hell.

The show will consist of four parts. Part one - Chad Plambeck, our MC will come out and talk a bit about this experiment. He'll probably call me some names, which will be well deserved. Part 2 - Omaha's own Matt Campbell, a very smart and funny man, will take the stage for 20 minutes or so. On to part thee, I will do about 45 minutes of stand up, followed by part four, socializing to live or canned music, depending on who I can find.

The whole affair, with any luck, should wind down around 11 p.m. - midnight.

I'll get to the "why" in another post, but I do want to express grattitude that I have friends and family who would a) get a kick out of this and b) actually make an effort to attend. It makes me feel brave enough to give this a shot.

The Comedy Show

A few things need to be explained right up front.

Here's the first one: The person writing this post is Mike, not Matt. The reason? Mike isn't smart enough to separate his work Blogger account with his personal Blogger account, so when he changes jobs, the one blended account suddenly becomes...OK I completely forgot what the log in is. Completely. I've spent about an hour trying different combos, and nothing. I can't even hack my own head. So I, Mike, and stealing Matt's account. Thanks, buddy.

The second thing - if you're reading this post you probably received an invitation to the Mike's 30th birthday party Aug. 11 at The Grand Theater in beautiful downtown Grand Island (and if you haven't received one, go ahead and ask. He's easy that way). And, chances are pretty good you've thought to yourself, "wow, what a conceded thing to do for your birthday," to which there is really no defense. I'm throwing myself a party so I can get enough people in one place to listen to me attempt stand-up comedy. It's pretty big headed of me, if you think about it.

But here's the thing: If "milestone" birthdays are about anything, it's about taking stock, right? You look at what have you done, what do you want to do, that sort of thing. You come to grips with this new station in your life and you move forward. In the "taking stock" process, I realized how much I've wanted to do this, how much I want this under my belt. I also realized, this isn't something a lot of people get to do, and I have a lot of people in my life who might support me in this type of ego-centric activity. That's a self-deprecating way of saying I really like you people and appreciate you being down with this.

Now, I have no plans of quitting my job and hitting the road as a stand-up after Aug. 11. In fact, I'd like to start tempering expectations right now. I probably won't be brilliant or ground breaking, and that's fine. What I will do is bust my hump to make sure everyone has a good time. I think, aside from an amazing act of egotism, this could be a really fun party.

That's my ramble. Now if you're interested more in the mechanics (the when, the where, more on the why), I'll be posting again soon. Under the name Hiro Protaganist. Which isn't my name.

Thanks and check back. I'm really looking forward to this.

Mike