Bastion Senior Reporter Kristy Mangel will be acting the part in this week's Friday Free-for-All, with a round-up of the past weekend, told fan-blog style.

Whew! The Bastion is finally recovering from this past week/end, just in time for the Friday Free-for-All round-up this week.

After helping a comic move boxes from his second floor condo to the moving truck parked in the alley below (he's off to the great wilds of Madison, Wis., only to be hanging in Chicago every weekend for the next year, we're sure) Saturday morning, it was off to Vittum Theater to take in Skepsis, the latest production of Same Planet Different World dance company.

The production included short films by P3 Mediaworks, one of which starred Chicago comedian Brady Novak, in a touching film about a boy's dream to welcome aliens to Earth. We were especially pleased to watch the production with the star himself, Mr. Novak, and comedian/F.O.B. Mark Vana. P3 Mediaworks are also involved with the Lincoln Lodge, and have shot some promotional videos for them, which you can view on P3's website under "Video Production". Cool.

Afterward, we hopped over to the midnight monthly comedy revue, A Demon Who Never Appeared! at Playground Theater. Hilarity and another late night ensued, as it is wont to do after such travails into the midnight show realm.

The next day, Sunday, saw us awake and ready to see the Buffalo Bills CRUSH the Chicago Bears (oh, did we forget to mention we're Bills fans? We are). Crush, they, uhh, didn't. To satiate some of the bad blood we were instigating during the game via text message to every Bears fan we had in our phonebook, we decided to stop by Seven Ten Lounge after the game screening at Delilah's had concluded. It was here we ran into three-fourths of the Visitor's Locker Room, taking in several games at once on the flat screen televisions, talking smack (which they can be heard doing every weekday at 3 p.m. CST on Fearless Radio), and generally being sports dudes. They are our favorite party crew in the comedy scene, it has to be said.

Somehow after that, we made it over to the Mix for Adam Kroshus's and John Springsteen's show, and from there headed to the Bad Dog stand-up showcase. Suffice to say, it was a looonng Sunday.

Monday night was another night at the Mix for the Pants Off open mic, the biggest in the city. It was a relatively demure night, until Josh Cheney had to strongarm an unwieldy and drunken comedian from the venue. It was pretty magical, his handling of the situation and the priceless recovery of the audience. One of those, you-had-to-be-there moments. There were also a few media peoples out, to take in the show and energy of the room. And this is to host Mike Bridenstine: Jon Benet Cougar Mellencamp? Tooo sooon.

Also scene out at the open mic was Second City Mainstage player Brian Gallivan. What a treat! His stand-up is just as great as his improv and sketch work.

This same night we heard the Las Vegas Comedy Festival was holding their call-back auditions at Zanies. Scene out were Bradley Fojas, Robert Buscemi, Pat Brice, Jeb Cadwell, Summer Neville, Eric Pennell, Mike Stanley, and 2004 festival contestant, Andy Woodhull. Good luck to everyone who went out; call-backs will begin again in November. The Bastion is strongly considering a trip to Vega$ in January...

This week we've been catching up on past episodes of Red Bar, and it seems as though there have been some monetary issues with the station. However, after a week of prerecorded shows, they're back on air live every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday night at 9 p.m. CST, and we overheard mention that it MIGHT go to five days a week, and Chicago comedian Brendan McGowan MIGHT be made permanent co-host.