I wandered into a local neighborhood bar called the Croatian Tavern last night where, to my surprise, there was a local sketch comedy and improvisation group call The Public Squares performing.  Being improv, throughout their skits they solicited suggestions from the audience in terms of topics, or notions, or single words. 

My contributions, from a stool where I was sucking down Coronas (with lime), were:

1) “Does any one have a favorite adjective?”   nfp: “Intrepid.”

2) “Give me one of those unforgettable sayings you learned, for instance, from your momma, when you were young.”   nfp: “Learn of Die.”

3) “Name an activity of profound interest to you.”   nfp: “Blogging.”

I think, on the whole, my contributions were not entirely appreciated by the troupe.

The first (1) response they used, along with a series of other volunteered words, in a half-spoken, half-pantomined charades-sort of scenario.  Whereas, some of the other contributions, “vomiting”, “amusement park”, etc., took them but seconds to act out, “intrepid” took them practically 5 minutes to stumble upon.  Trouble.

The second response, “Learn of Die”, they used merely as a spoken fill-the-empty-slot phrase in another skit.  Actually, as inserted, it was so off-the-wall that it drew almost unanimous laughter from the crowd of about 100.

But the third response, “Blogging”, was the one that chilled the troupe.  One on the comedians was supposed to run with the topic and just quip about it everything he knew.  Trouble was, he and his compatriots didn’t seem to know much about “blogging”. 

The first sign of discomfort was that he tried to turn “blogging” into “logging” and talk bout Paul Bunyan.  I didn’t let him get away with that and vocally restated: “Blogging.  Blah-blah-blah-blogging.”

Eventually, he and his comrades did address “blogging” but only in terms of “sexual predators seeking teenage-girls on MySpace.com”.  Yep. that’s what blogging reduces to when it sails into the currents of offline pop culture.  Trouble is, although I “got it” and found it hilarious because I was able to reinsert their parody into a broader context, I bet that for a lot of the ever-so-quiet audience that this was either their first  exposure to the notion of “blogging” or just a becoming-familiar reiteration of what they’ve heard about blogging in the news.

God, that troupe must hate me.   I can imagine them bemoaning me as that "damned blogger."  But, truth is, I pay next to no attention to the blogs of teenage girls.  (I like older ... )