We have unhealthy family patterns to fall back into over dry turkey and cranberry chutney just like you do, therefore this will be our last post until next Monday. Happy Turkey Day, Chicago comedy scenesters!

Last Friday the Bastion popped into Schadenfreude's Rent Party to see the gang up to their usual antics. Tony Sam got up and strummed silliness on his ukelele, Sasha and the Noob led us all in a very sedate version of "put your hands in the air...and make a very quiet noise of agreement," and the always awesome Robert Buscemi confusingly delighted us with some penguin viscera references, but all was good, because the Schadenfolks treated us to holiday ham and sweet potatoes - the fancy kind, bejeweled with marshmallows. Local politics took a satirical beating, and Schadenfreude shamefully admitted actually being a little short on rent, which prompted a visit from a very disappointed "Schadenfreude's Dad," who shelled out as much humiliation as money before the night was over. We found out that the gang's forays into screenwriting are meeting with much interest, and we were promised updates on developments in that area.

Also recently, Chicago's Ken Barnard placed second at the Third Annual Andy Kaufman Contest in New York City. According to a press release, "The Andy Kaufman Award, given during the New York Comedy Festival, pays tribute to the originality, humor and courage of the legendary Andy Kaufman. Over 250 performers from across America competed for twenty semi-finalist positions. Of these twenty, eight were chosen as finalists. Barnard made it into the finals when one finalists was unable to compete on the 9th. Coming in as the underdog, Barnard placed second over all."

Also, Saturday, we visited Pressure for some stand-up, where we saw writer and stand-up Michael Palascak, who told us about how opening for Caroline Rhea at the Improv resulted in his imagination spinning out very detailed fantasies of spending the rest of his life with his childhood crush Sabrina the Teenage Witch: "Caroline Rhea was really nice and seem interested in my life. She even tried to get me girls' phone #'s when she was signing cd's for people, so that was sweet of her. It was weird being around someone who in the tv world was both a witch and the aunt of Melissa Joan Hart. Part of me was hoping that in the green room between shows I would somehow kiddingly mention how I had a huge crush on Melissa Joan Hart as a kid and Caroline would think it was funny and call her on her cell phone right there and I would talk to Melissa, MJ, and we would laugh and talk...