Stool Pigeon Update
Last Saturday (Valentine’s Day), David Kassin Fried, co-author of Ups & Downs and graduate of the ColdTowne Conservatory, was the featured guest in Stool Pigeon, a weekly improv show where a local celebrity/guest tells stories from his life, on which the improvisers … well, improvise funny scenes. The star of the show turned out to be the actor-of-Hispanic-descent who wound up playing an Italian pedophile. Needless to say, a great time was had by all.
Special thanks to ColdTowne for the opportunity, and a special shout-out to their new offspring, The New Movement opening March 1st. If you’re looking for improv in Austin, check out both – you can’t go wrong.
February 19, 2009 at 4:14 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
Stool Pigeon at ColdTowne Theater Tomorrow!
We know it’s short notice and we know it’s Valentine’s Day, but Ups & Downs was just given a slot at ColdTowne Theater‘s weekly Stool Pigeon event tomorrow (Saturday) night at 8:00 PM.
If you’re not familiar with it, Stool Pigeon is an improvised comedy format in which a featured guest (in this case, Ups & Downs co-author David Kassin Fried) tells stories from their life, or in this case, reads excerpts from our awesomely hilarious travel adventure, Ups & Downs: The (Mis)Adventures of a Crusty Old Fart and his Bouncy Son as they Trek Through the Alps. At appropriate intervals, the guest will step to the side and hilarious improv comedy will ensue, as the improvisers twist the stories into funny, unpredictable, and completely made-up-on-the-spot scenes.
After the show, we’ll be selling advance copies of the book at a discounted rate, so if you want to get it now, come on down!
Come to Ups & Downs Stool Pigeon at ColdTowne Theater.
February 13, 2009 at 9:53 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
Become a Book Reviewer
Rebeccas Reads is an online book review site with the intention to “spread the word of unusual, less-read, good books [and to] entertain, inform & hopefully convince visitors to buy books.” Reviewers are folks from the general public, and although you don’t receive any monetary compensation, you do get to keep the books you review – all you have to do in exchange is submit a 3-5 paragraph review of the book. We submitted Ups & Downs to Rebeccas Reads for book review consideration, and they’re still looking for someone to review it, so if you become a reviewer there you can help us generate publicity and get a free copy of the book.
February 10, 2009 at 7:30 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
Don’s play, “Shakespeare Incorporated,” wins first prize at RMTA
“Shakespeare Incorporated,” Don’s zany, but historically possible play on who really wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare, has won first prize in the full-length play category at the Rocky Mountain Theater Association’s 2009 Festival. The competition was open to playwrights from Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Click Here to go to Don’s Website and see the synopsis of “Shakespeare Incorporated.”
The Exorcism Posted
The next chapter of the book, The Exorcism, has been posted on the Excerpts page. Here we find out what that barn was really like.
January 28, 2009 at 4:27 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
Bovine Tinnitus
We’ve added a new excerpt to the Excerpts page: Bovine Tinnitus. Sleeping in Farmer Fritz’s Patty Patch proved to be a bit of a challenge for Don, and after a restless night he muses on Swiss footpath navigation, cowbells, and the tribulations of making and breaking camp.
We spend the day walking to the ghost town of Urnerboden, where we sleep in a barn to escape the pouring rain.
We’ll post the next update, The Exorcism, in a few days, letting you see just how creepy this barn actually was.
January 26, 2009 at 5:10 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
New Excerpt Added
We’ve added a new excerpt, More Adventures With Fire on our Excerpts page. This chapter features our rainproof fire, more failed attempts at buying propane for our campstove, and a trip through Glarus on the Fridliweg, with some rather unfortunately sleeping situations.
January 10, 2009 at 5:16 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
Better Ways to Stay in Touch
As we learn our way around this mad, mad world that is viral marketing, it came to our attention that there were no RSS feeds/links on our homepage. For those of you who know what this is, that problem has been corrected, and you can find said RSS feed link on the right nav bar.
On a related note, we’re putting together a mailing list. In the near future we’ll certainly include a fancy form, but in the meantime, if you’d like to receive weekly(ish) updates on progress, signings, etc., please send an email to upsanddowns@fried.cc.
January 9, 2009 at 7:18 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
Photos Added
We added over 300 photos from the trip to the Ups & Downs Facebook Page today. Sometime in the future we may add them here, but in the meantime, please visit the Facebook page and become a fan!
January 8, 2009 at 7:04 pm David Kassin Fried Leave a comment
Another article on Don’s Postville play
There have been several newspaper articles in the past week about Don’s upcoming play which deals with the events in the northeast Iowa town of Postville.
In the late 1980s, Postville was slowly dying. Then an entrepreneur from a sect of Hasidic Jews purchased the defunct meatpacking plant and moved in with 30 orthodox rabbis and their families. An incredible (and often comic) culture clash ensued. In May of 2008, the comedy turned to tragedy when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Raid uncovered large numbers of illegal immigrants and underage workers in the plant along with numerous other employment law infractions.
The resulting human and economic devastation are far from being resolved.
Take a look at Don’s blog, “They’re Hijacking My Play” to see more on the events in Postville and on the play, and click on the following link to read the article in the Des Moines Register.
