I’ve been getting a lot of spam comments lately, for reasons unbeknownst* to me.

My Comedy Open Mics have been moved to Third Thursdays**, which means the next one is a lot sooner than I’d expected — June 18th! Anyone who enjoys seeing free live comedy, or attempting live comedy, or cafes that sell tasty food and drink, should come join us at 7pm at the Parlor Cafe on that date.

Life has been very good lately. I say this not to boast, but to encourage/remind people that if you spend a lot of time laughing in good company, that can end up matter more than whatever little negatives may occur. So if you can’t attend my comedy nights, I encourage you to find free comedy near you — or more importantly, funny people whose company you enjoy!

Meanwhile, my most recent column has even more puns than usual.

*Does anyone ever use the word “knownst”? I think I’ve only ever seen it in Spaceballs.

**Or as we call them in the portmanteau business, “Thirdsdays”

So, roughly four years ago, as an experiment, I posted a freestyle rapped boardgame review* of the game Belfort. For whatever reason, I never did a second one until a few weeks ago, but I have now added reviews of the boardgames Twilight Struggle and Flea Market. I am definitely still in the learning process of how to freestyle reviews, and thanks to a 4-year hiatus I learned nothing from my first review because I forgot everything. From my second review, I learned that the background music needs to be much softer compared to my vocals, so everything I say is easy to hear. From my third review, I learned that these videos may be too long, and consequently my next (fourth) review will probably skip the rules summary entirely and just be a review. And hopefully I can start to make these into something that people (like you!) will want to watch.

My poetry and comedy performances continue, as I’ve been hitting the monthly WordXWord poetry events in the lead-up to the August festival, as well as continuing to host my 4th Thursday Comedy Open Mic at the Parlor Cafe. I’ve been thrilled at the wonderful comedians who have been coming, including in some cases the hosts of the comedy open mics in Albany and Northhampton. It makes me feel like my tiny town of North Adams matters, and not just because we were in the news recently for drunken bear-chasing antics.

I could mention that we continue eating all sorts of delectable homemade food ranging from shrimp egg rolls to lomo saltado, but that seems like it’s not good manners. I don’t really have a clever way to end this post, but hopefully I’ll think of one later.

*  I have been told that my projects seem to pick bizarre target demographics which are the center of a Venn Diagram most people have never considered. But I think rhyming and gaming absolutely should go together — that’s why I’d designed that rapping card game a few years back. It’s also why last time I played an auction game, I offered free poetry along with the spices to whoever won the auction. Debbie responded that she would pay more if the winning lot did not include my poetry.