Seven and the Ragged Tiger

Quick, who's the band?

It was Duran Duran, and that's the name of the last studio album they released, in 1983, before taking a twenty-year break. There were only five guys in the band, but (as explained by Simon LeBon), adding their two managers made it seven. The ragged tiger was a metaphor for success.

Saturday night, before the final blackout, the Hypothetical Seven were briefly seven again. Two of the founding players, Matthew Reiss and Dan Spurgin, came out to Bonner Springs for the show, and were kind enough to join us onstage for our last game, 189. Matthew used to host the shows, so Joe asked him to get the ask-for, and when I heard his stage voice for the first time in nearly two years, I got a little teary inside, in a warm, long-lost way.

It didn't make me think we should keep being the Hypothetical Seven. In fact, I feel that much stronger that we're doing the right thing. In anything but a one-liner (or other fairly superficial) game, you really couldn't throw a few H7's from the 1990's onstage with the current bunch and come out with anything but mud - whereas before Matt and Dan left, there was enough continuity in style that some players would come back after a few months off or even a couple years.

Heh... H7 also used to play a clean show. Nothing wrong with that. It means you can invite more people (like kids) without fear of offending or traumatizing them. It means you don't go for the easy gag, you can make the funny without resorting to lowest-common-denominator blah-blah. But, man, oh man, was the show raunchy. There may have been more f-bombs dropped in that hour-forty-five than in the entire previous fifteen years of the troupe's existence. Our "Musical Improv" game ("Day in the Life" plus guitar) revolved largely around the toileting habits of Dan's new baby. We had an especially good round of "I Like My Men/Women," and by good, I mean rrrowwwrr.

It wasn't just a blue show, though. It was a good show. The energy almost crackled out loud, we were so on. We had our best turnout in a while, too: enough people to make the Imp look reasonably full, and they were really into it. Our first half was a marathon of twelve-count-'em-twelve games, all of them longtime H7 favorites that we had to play one last time. Then we played Hypertext for the longform, with a one-liners encore. It. Was. Exhausting. The audience edits Hypertext, and they kept us moving!

I'm pretty sure I stayed out of my head most of the show, and by the end of it I felt almost drunk with happiness. The good kind of drunk. I was too happy to sleep, like my smile was keeping me awake, and I was really trying to sleep because we had a tech rehearsal for Sketchy Thoughts at ten-freaking-ay-em Sunday morning. Yay, coffee, and thanks for the donuts, Nick!

So, what does the future hold? Maybe a reunion of original H7'ers, for one thing, which I hope I'll get to tech if it happens. I love those guys (and occasional gals). I'm getting my sketch fix with Sketchy Thoughts - please come see the show next Saturday! - and I'm even writing something for the following show. As for the small bunch of us now improvising without a name, we're keeping the June 13 booking at the Imp, and we can't tell you what we're doing. It's a surprise.