I’m convinced that there are hundreds, even thousands of you out there who read my intro entry and found it hard to believe that I used to work in a research laboratory. No Gullible Gus you! You’re simply a product of 20th century skepticism. You want some sweet, sweet  evidence that I actually used to work in a drug addiction research lab. Well internet, here it is:

Yup!  That’s me in the small animal surgery facility of my old lab, dressed in my finest Personal Protective Equipment (I think Minty Dental Green is my color!). The adorable little beastie on my chest is a prime specimen of the Long-Evans strain of Rattus norvegicus.  Cute, isn’t he? Kind of like a tiny, milkless cow.  Now is a good time for any vegan, vegetarian, or just plain squeamish readers to to turn their attention to something more palatable.

Are the softies gone? Ok, cause I just wanted to clear you out so I could safely give this picture context. Right after I took this picture, I anesthetized Lil’ Subject 310 with a common veterinary cocktail, catheterized his right jugular vein with a piece of silicone elastomer tubing, and bilaterally implanted two 16-wire microarrays into is nucleus accumbens. After about two weeks of recuperation, the little guy began training on a operant task in which he learned that every time he pressed a small lever, he’d get a shot of cocaine hydrochloride directly into his bloodstream.

To be exact, it’s not that he realized that he got an injection of a highly addictive, but more that he realizes that every time he presses the lever he SUDDENLY FEELS FUCKING AWESOME. Rats are like people, man: they like to feel awesome.

SO… you are probably wondering why the hell I did all of that. How did I know what you were thinking? Well, everybody I’ve ever talked about my job with has reacted in one of 2 highly predictable ways.
ONE: “Oh ha ha hey maaaan, ha ha, can u like, share some of those drugs, heh heh?”  Ha ha ha! Comedy jokes, ha ha! I LOVE ‘EM AND IT IS JUST AS FUNNY EVERY TIME!
TWO: “Uh, why? Don’t we already know that when you give people drugs, they get high?”

On rare occasions I’ll get a third reaction, some shit like “Oh really? What lab? I did my postdoc with Patricio O’Donnell; were you guys recording in prefrontal cortical structures or just accumbens?” That’s pretty refreshing; feel free to leave responses like that in the comments or on my voicemail.

But yeah, number Two, we do already know that people get high on drugs. That’s not the question we’re asking. We’re trying to figure out why it is that some people can take or leave drugs, and why some people CAN’T FUCKING STOP no matter how much they want to. My lab was specifically interested in investigating the neural process underlying addiction – what is actually happening to populations of neurons in the portion of the brain that regulate motivation and behavior. We worked from the general assumption that addiction is a subversion of the normal mammalian learning process.  In other words: rats are mammals, we are mammals, so some of the underlying mechanisms are going to translate. Hence the use of Lil’ Subject 310 in our operant conditioning model of human behavior.

I think I could probably say more about my time at the lab, but I just looked at the clock and it is officially Get A Burrito PM. One more thing before I eat: Number One, I am not even dignifying that with a response or a link to the DEA’s strict enforcement policies. Shouldn’t you  get back to bumming your roommates’ debit card to renew you subscription to High Times?

Later skaters!

Hey internet! It’s EXTRA STRENGTH cast member Alexis Simpson.  I’m sure you’ll find this difficult to believe, but the fact is that EXTRA STRENGTH isn’t the only thing I do with my time. Like many members of the iO West family and greater improv community, I live a double life. I have an agent, I audition, I do shows — but in between, I look for any reasonable paid work such that I can afford to eat.

But unlike most of the actors I know, I have a bachelor’s in psychology with a concentration in neural and behavioral sciences. Oh, and I spent several post-grad years working full-time in a drug addiction research lab. The lab investigated the neural basis of psychostimulant addiction in the mammalian limbic system using a rodent self-administration model. So, in layman’s terms: I GOT RATS HIGH ON COCAINE, FOR SCIENCE.

Prior, during, and since my glory days as a “lab rat coke dealer,” I’ve held a number of interesting jobs and a number of boring jobs that resulted in interesting stories. To that end, I thought you might enjoy hearing some of these stories, and thought I would gather them under the header “Day Job/Night Job.” You can look forward to hearing about the time I got hit on while cleaning a hamster cage! Or the time my Egyptian Jon Lovitz-look-alike boss sent me home with 4 whole chickens!! Or the day I discovered that Megan Fox fans are dumber than Adriana Lima fans!!!! Hey, that was today!

But I won’t do it now. I have to leave for my shift at the iO West Box Office and then I’m off to the Ladies Are Funny Festival in Austin, Texas with The Real Housewives of Philadelphia. So for now, consider yourself teased.

Happy weekend!

On Saturday February 13, while the other members of Extra-Strength were working hard on the Mainstage, the Extra-Strength ladies were together on the East Coast. While visiting friends in Philadelphia, I got the chance to see Alexis in a hilarious improv/rap-battle called Beef! It was a great night; featuring two feuding improv groups in a set of scenes who then performed together towards the end, rounding it out in a huge rap battle that was judged by a visiting Birthday pope (see picture below).

Maybe I’m biased (I am) but Alexis has extraordinary rap skills. She emceed the night with a friend of hers who had one of those digital voice-box thingys (that’s the technical term I think) and now I want one of those. I think it would add to my own street cred.

I took some pictures of the night. As you can see even though my picture-taking abilities have not grown since I last wrote it hasn’t stopped me from taking hazy pictures in other states. Alexis put together a wonderful night. It made me remember again why I have so much fun playing with her, what a talent she is and how lucky we are to have her on the West side now.

Alexis and myself – another classic self-portrait.

Alexis holding it down (and keeping it real at the same time).

A hazy picture of Alexis serving it to someone (is that how you say it? Why am I so white?)

Alexis and the Birthday Pope.

The winner. For reals.

I’m a horrible picture taker. I inherited this (along with no sense of direction) from my mother. If there is a way that I can get my thumb in a picture I will make it happen. I also never remember to take pictures when I actually do have a camera, which is exactly what happened this year at the Extra-Strength Christmas party. I was all excited to take pictures of my new team (everyone looked so nice too! Even Pico…) and remembered that I wanted to take pictures at the party (the next day).

So to redeem myself partially, I actually remembered my camera at our January show and decided to take some pictures of us backstage. My candid shots look like this:

Awkward.

So then I got inspired and giddy and forced everyone to take a series of self-portraits with me.

Tommy and I started it off right.

Konowal and me (looking as excited as I did in the first one)

Conroy. Well done sir, well done.

Uretz and most of my face.

Pico showing his good side…

Guba (he looks so innocent!)

Uretz and me again. So good.

And Johnny (I think I actually hopped in front of him to take that one).

And then right before we went on-stage I told Konowal to show me his jazz hands:

Done and done. What I love about this team is they live in the land of yes and always give me a lot of and as well. Thanks guys!

EXTRA-STRENGTH jumped on the Facebook bandwagon to celebrate Doppelganger Week. Here’s our new headshots and bios.

TOMMY BECHTOLD

Tommy is a clumsy, food-loving “goonie” who likes to make up sensational stories and tries to pass them off as true. Unlike most child stars he has yet to knock over a liquor store or delve into Internet porn.

JOHN CONROY

Conroy has wicked insane abs and a promising career ahead of him as a character actor when he hits middle age. But first he has to recover from a long struggle with drugs and, even worse, marriage to Meg fucking Ryan.

TRAVIS GUBA

Travis is a “friend of Dorothy.” He has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is known for his comedic chops, including his performance as the lovable and not at all stereotypical Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

JOHNNIE HERTLEIN

The “bad boy” of EXTRA-STRENGTH best known for his fearlessness, which he readily displays in his performances, consumption of potentially lethal amounts of alcohol and drugs, and in homemade sex tapes with Playboy models.

MAGGY KEEGAN

Maggy is best known as the first female President of the United States. She was last seen driving off a cliff into the Grand Canyon with Susan Sarandon, but EXTRA-STRENGTH suspects, despite the laws of gravity, that they made it to the other side because, up to that point, let’s face it: those bitches were pretty goddamned lucky.

BRIAN KONOWAL

Konowal is best known for initiating “close encounters” of any kind. Also, he needs a bigger boat.

BRIAN O’CONNELL

Brian (or BOC as we call him) is about to be nominated for Best Actor. Obviously EXTRA-STRENGTH believes he deserves to win, but alas he’s got zero chance of stopping Jeff Bridges (or The Dude as we call him). We are very, very conflicted.

BRANDON PICO

An exotic looker of hard-to-determine ethnic background (seriously, what the hell is he?), Brandon is best known for his role in one of the 17 versions of Law & Order and for dating Julia Roberts.

ALEXIS SIMPSON

Few people realize that Alexis is a German woman, partly because she’s fond of dressing like a British man. She considers Madeline Kahn’s impersonation of her in Blazing Saddles to be a career highlight.

JUSTIN URETZ

Justin, seen here with Friends, one of which is his wife and the other of which is a man-hungry manic-depressive because, among other things, her womb is so barren her nickname is Tunguska, is a quirky guy. He’s best known as being part of an acting dynasty that includes the inspiration for a Toto song, a mind-reader, and at least one transexual.

My best friend (musician Kay Hanley) and I learned today that this picture of us is the #1 Google image search result for “liberal assholes.”

We staged the photo the night of Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC last year. We made a point of drinking chardonnay because lattes would have been déclassé at that hour (but wearing sunglasses was of course apropos). Originally it was posted to her blog, then apparently went viral, mostly via conservative sites ripping us with their trademark wit and wisdom.

As another friend of ours noted, “This is bigger than winning an Oscar.” Even my right-leaning father said, between fits of laughter, “I have never been prouder of you. Or Kay for that matter.”

Kay and I would like to thank the mass of tubes that is the internets for this fine honour. We are but humble enthusiasts of chai tea, fencing and the pleasantries of The New Yorker’s erudite humorist David Sedaris. While we ourselves would never use pedestrian syntax such as that which indicates the exit point of the digestive tract, even we can appreciate the droll crudeness the term offers, particularly vis-à-vis our frequent, ribald dialogues on Canadian health care, the works of e.e. cummings, or the subtle nuance a dash of cumin can bring to cous-cous, escabeche or the simple egg-white omelette.

This is probably an unexpected post to find on a comedy troupe’s blog… but we are human beings first and funny people second.

EXTRA-STRENGTH encourages our friends and fans to please text the word “HAITI” to 90999 and donate $10 to the American Red Cross relief effort. To most of us that’s not a lot of money, but to millions of people who’ve been affected by this horrific tragedy it could be the difference between life and death.

Thanks,
EXTRA-STRENGTH

This is a Christmas Eve  quickie about my gratitude for modern life. We live in amazing times. A hundred years ago, you had to travel for hours to get anywhere and everybody died of dysentery. Plus, I hear bad things about horsehair armchairs. Not only that, but the proliferation of information, being largely pony-dependent, was excruciatingly slow. If you came up with something hilarious and nobody was around, you had no way to share it without saddling up Pepper and trotting a few miles to the local tavern.

Today, I wrote the awesomest joke I have ever written. I mean, I might have peaked here, people. It’s got it all: puns. Allusions to one of America’s most turbulent periods in history. More puns. Alone in the house but desperate to share, I published it on one of my Twitter pages- no equestrian skills required.

Here’s the joke:

Q: What did General Westmoreland put on his Charlie Horse?
A: NEIGH-Palm!

I KNOW, RIGHT? Anyway, about a minute after “twit-ting” the joke, I refreshed my feed and saw that legendary peace activist and Vietnam protester Yoko Ono was out and about. Yep, she was sending out Holidays messages of peace and love. Right after I just made a napalm joke. Sigh.

But it kind of made me happy, you know? What a marvel of modern man, that I might write the awesomest thing I’ll ever write, only to worry mere seconds later that I might have offended Yoko Ono. Yeah yeah, I know that the likelihood that she actually saw the joke is quite slim, and it’s a fatter chance still that she was offended. But I think it speaks to the wonders of modern life that it’s a possibility. It’s my pick for Christmas Miracle.

Happy Holidays, everybody!