Chamomile & Nutrisweet

Last week, just before our 42nd Underground set, I was pretty starving from not having eaten and had to run outside to grab a snack. I handed my camera off to Geoff and said, "“Hey, feel free to take some pictures if you'd like."”

Here'’s what I found on my camera later that evening:



It'’s nice to feel loved.

You'’ll notice that Alex is holding a bottle of pink liquid. That'’s Happy Bunny--a prop used in our opening sketch of the night called Beverage Assortment.

Now I don'’t want to ruin the "magic"” or anything, but Happy Bunny varies from show to show, depending on whatever drinks are available at the closest deli. This particular Happy Bunny turned out to be a bottle of nice, warm, thick, milky, strawberry-flavored Nestle'’s Quik.

So the show starts. We open with Beverage Assortment, and then go into Guess!--—a game show sketch that involves Jerf and I shouting our brains out for a good two minutes or so. Stefan is supposed to enter halfway through with a bottle of refreshing water, which Jerf and I immediately steal, chug, and spill all over the place in a fit of desperate thirst.

Thing is, this time, instead of water, Stefan brings out the bottle of Happy Bunny from the previous sketch. And though I do appreciate the thematic implications, I gotta say: standing there under those hot lights, genuinely exhausted from having shouted for two minutes straight, and having to chug down half a bottle of Strawberry Candycrap Quik and then having to act as if it were some refreshing nectar of life as it spilled down my face and neck and shirt...—it was probably the most disgusting thing I'’ve done in a really long time. Eating rats excluded.

Jerf remained onstage to do an entire other sketch, as I clamored backstage in the dark trying to rinse away the Quik-ness with mouthfuls of Mountain Dew and cloudy white Vitamin Water.

It'’s nice to work with people who challenge you.