Tag Archives: Paul Barrosse

June 2, 2012 · 9:22 pm

Victoria & The Villager…

With two weeks before “The Vic & Paul Show” opens at The Beverly Arts Center in Chicago, Victoria had a conversation with another hometown neighborhood newspaper, The Villager…

“Wine should be available during the show,” said Victoria Zielinski, who is one half of The Vic and Paul Show. “This kind of comedy goes best with wine.”

A collection of tightly-scripted comedy sketches, The Vic and Paul Show will make its BAC debut in mid June and will feature Zielinski, a North Beverly native, and her husband, fellow comic Paul Barrosse, who co-founded Chicago’s Practical Theater Company in the 1980s and who has worked as a writer and producer on such notable television show’s as “Saturday Night Live,” “Little People, Big World” and VH1’s “Behind the Music.”

According to Zielinski, The Vic and Paul Show is the result of conversations which took place around the couple’s kitchen table. It touches on politics, religion, and above all, relationships.

“We’re at that stage in our lives where the kids are grown and we’re thinking, what now?” she said. “But the show isn’t only about that. It captures the dilemma of being in a relationship at any age.”

A veteran of sketch comedy and improv, Zielinski met her husband while both were drama students at Northwestern University.

“We knew each other in college,” she said, “but we didn’t pay any attention to one another back then, because we were both involved with other people.”

After earning a Masters degree in Performance Studies, Zielinski joined the Laugh Track, a comedy troupe which toured Chicago colleges and clubs. She soon became involved with the Practical Theater Company, a comedy troupe which was started by Northwestern University students and which included such notable Chicago actors as Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger, Seinfeld star Julia Louis Dreyfus, and Zielinski’s future husband, Barrosse.

Zielinski landed several leading roles with the PTC, a troupe which enjoyed marked success during the 1980s, often rivaling Chicago ’s legendary Second City Theater. Her resume from that time also includes roles with the Goodman Theater, the National Jewish Theater and the Court Theater.

Zielinski grew up at 91^st and Hamilton and attending Kellogg elementary school and Luther South high school. She grew up loving Original Rainbow Cones and Fox’s pizza, and has fond memories of afternoons spent at Ridge Park and Walker Branch Library.

“There’s not a better place on the face of the planet to grow up,” she said. “Everybody knows everybody else, and there’s a community feeling that truly epitomizes Chicago . I didn’t realize how special Beverly was until I was raising my own kids in L.A. , which is the complete cultural opposite.”

Zielinski and Barrosse were married in 1990, relocating to Los Angeles shortly thereafter to pursue opportunities in television. They have three daughters, Maura, Emilia and Eva.

Confident in the comedic taste of Beverly/Morgan Park, Zielinski is eager to return to the neighborhood of her youth.

“Audiences in Chicago understand comedy,” she said. “I think it has a lot to do with being raised on Second City .”

This is particularly true, said Zielinski, when it comes to the hot button topics of politics and religion.

“We feel very comfortable with our sketches about Chicago politics,” she said, “but that’s because we’re from there. And religion – well, nobody gets Catholic humor like somebody from Chicago .”

Zielinski describes the show as musical, colorful, and physical – a style throwback packed with contemporary material. It was well reviewed in L.A., and when it premiered in Chicago this past December, the Tribune called it “old time comedy done right.”

The 8-performance run of The Vic and Paul Show will take place from June 15-17, and from June 21-24. Tickets are $22 ($20 for BAC members) and are available at the BAC box office or by visiting www.beverlyartcenter.org.

“The Vic & Paul Show” Plays the Best Location in the Nation…

This summer, July 12-15^th at the 14^th Street Theatre in Playhouse Square, I’ll be performing again in my beloved hometown — 36 years after my last turn on a Cleveland area stage as Broadway song and dance legend George M. Cohan in the Euclid Shore Center of the Arts’ Bicentennial production of George M!

I began my stage career as a freshman at Cleveland Central Catholic High School when director Dennis Behl cast me as Og the Leprechaun in the spring ’77 musical, Finian’s Rainbow.

Since I played football and wrestled, I was only able to do the spring play. (At Cleveland Central Catholic there was, thankfully, no dividing line between the jocks and theatre folk.)

In my sophomore year at CCC, the fabulous Mary Ann Zampino took over the Central Catholic theatre program – and I won the role of Coach Bart Bascom in You Were Born on a Rotten Day.

It’s still hard to imagine I wrestled at 126 pounds – and that Bart Bascom could wear such a tight t-shirt with complete confidence. (Those were the days, my friend.)

You Were Born on a Rotten Day was certainly not a classic theatrical property, but in the two years that followed, I had the opportunity to play two great American musical theatre roles: Marrying Sam in Li’l Abner (originated on Broadway by the famed Stubby Kaye) and, in my senior year, Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man.

Now, 36 years after playing the title roles in The Music Man and George M! – and, after a decade of work in Chicago theatre, a brief but memorable stint at Saturday Night Live, and a productive two decades in the television industry in Los Angeles, I’m thrilled to be returning to Cleveland with my very funny wife Victoria and my great friend and musical director Steve Rashid to perform our hit improvisational comedy revue The Vic & Paul Show from July 12-15 at The 14th Street Theatre in Cleveland’s Playhouse Square.

The Chicago Tribune calls The Vic & Paul Show “Old school sketch comedy done right” – so go to the Cleveland Playhouse Square website to purchase tickets for an unforgettable evening of comedy, music, marriage and martinis.

This is going to be a very funny homecoming.

To all my Cleveland family, friends, and fellow Central Catholic alumni – I promise you an evening of laughs well worth the 36-year wait.

And, hey! The Tribe’s in first place – so, it’s all good!

Here’s the whole “Vic & Paul Show” Summer 2012 Tour…

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Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music

Tagged as 14th Street Theate, cabaret, Cleveland, Cleveland Central Catholic, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Playhouse Square, Fasko, George M!, improvisational comedy, Li'l Abner, Mary Ann Zampino, Paul Barrosse, The Vic & Paul Show

May 17, 2012 · 9:40 am

Just One Month until “The Vic & Paul Show” @ The Beverly Arts Center…

There’s only one month left to get your tickets for The Vic & Paul Show at The Beverly Arts Center on Chicago’s South Side at 2407 W. 111th Street from June 15-24th. For more info about the show and the Beverly neighborhood — Victoria’s childhood home — click here.

See you at The Beverly Arts Center in June!

“Vic & Paul” Go Hollywood!

“The Vic & Paul Show” is coming to Hollywood.

Yes, that Hollywood.

Tinseltown.

The Entertainment Capital of the World

For one weekend only this summer, August 9-12, 2012, we’ll be performing “The Vic & Paul Show” at The iO West Theatre at 6366 Hollywood Boulevard — not far from those famous handprints and footprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and all the stars underfoot along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

My very funny wife Victoria Zielinski and I will be joined, as ever, by our musical director Steve Rashid for what we call an “Evening of Comedy, Music, Marriage and Martinis” – a show The Chicago Tribune proclaimed “Old school sketch comedy done right.”

When we brought our show to Chicago last year, WGN Radio personality and veteran Chicago newspaperman Rick Kogan said, “One of the theatrical events of the year is the return of Paul Barrosse and Victoria Zielinski to the Chicago stage with ‘The Vic & Paul Show’…the new Nichols & May… It’s a not-to-be-missed engagement.” So, listen to Rick, and don’t miss our engagement at iO West.

Our four performances in Hollywood this August will give our friends and comedy lovers in Southern California their first chance to see the show since it opened in June 2010 at Push Lounge in Woodland Hills.

The iO West Theatre is a perfect venue for “The Vic & Paul Show” – an intimate cabaret space devoted to improvisational comedy. (Sort of like The Practical Theatre Company’s fabled John Lennon Auditorium with a full bar and more than twice the seating.) Formerly known as the “ImprovOlympic West”, iO West has been operating at its Hollywood location since October 2001.

The i.O. was founded by the legendary Second City veteran and eccentric improvisational comedy genius Del Close and Charna Halpern. Fittingly, there’s a Practical Theatre connection here: a connection that began, as so much did, in Chicago in the early 1980s. That’s when we first met Del and Charna.

Through our long association with Second City director Sheldon Patinkin (our comedy guru since 1981) and our brief partnership with Second City owner Bernie Sahlins in the Piper’s Alley Theatre, we Practical Theatre folk got to know the talented denizens of Chicago’s comedy institution at North & Wells, including the infamous Del Close.

Del’s portrait adorns a wall of the iO West main stage, where we’ll be performing.

By the time we met Del Close in the early 80s, he had already performed and directed for Second City, then moved to San Francisco where he directed another classic improv comedy group, The Committee, and toured with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. Del spent the early 80s in New York, as “House Metaphysician” at Saturday Night Live, coaching the cast and further burnishing his reputation as a major influence on modern American comedy.

I got to know Del better when we were both cast in a 1984 Goodman Theatre production of A Christmas Carol. I was the Ghost of Christmas Past and Del was the Ghost of Christmas Present. Around this time, I tried to develop a Practical Theatre show with Del – a project we called The Secret Show: a revolutionary new revue to be written and performed by Rush Pearson and me as humorous henchmen in the service of a mad comic scientist to be played by Del.

The Secret Show never happened, but Del was enshrined as an honorary member of The Practical Theatre ensemble in 1985 at a ritual in which Del dipped his feet in red paint and stomped his iconic footprints into the sidewalk in front of The John Lennon Auditorium at 703 Howard Street in Evanston.

At the time we were contemplating The Secret Show, Del was busy teaching improv and collaborating with Charna Halpern. Close was working with Charna at the ImprovOlympic Theater, which she’d founded and briefly run with David Shepherd, one of the founders of the Compass Players (the forerunner to The Second City). We got to know Charna when we were both doing shows at the late, lamented, counter-cultural nightclub, CrossCurrents on Belmont in Chicago.

More than a quarter of a century later, Victoria and I reconnected with Charna when we both made presentations at The Chicago Theatre Symposium in the spring of last year – and again when she came to Rogers Park during the holidays see “The Vic & Paul Show” at Mayne Stage.

The rest is much more recent history.

So, join us at the iO West Theatre August 9-12th.

You can check out those famous hand and footprints at Grauman’s before the show.

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Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation

Tagged as cabaret, Charna Halpern, Del Close, Hollywood, Hollywood Boulevard, improvisational comedy, ImprovOlympic, iO West, Paul Barrosse, Steve Rashid, The Second City, The Vic & Paul Show, Victoria Zielinski

April 5, 2012 · 11:53 pm

“The Vic & Paul Show” — Steve’s Photo Tour of The Beverly Arts Center…

Steve Rashid, the musical director of The Vic & Paul Show, took a scouting trip to The Beverly Arts Center – where Vic, Steve and I will be appearing this summer from June 15-17 and 21-24.

Here’s Steve driving up to The Beverly Arts Center, located on Chicago’s South Side at 2407 W. 111th Street. You can’t see her in this show, but Steve is with his lovely wife, Bea Rashid, a brilliant dancer and choreographer who runs the Evanston cultural institution, Dance Center Evanston. Bea took many of these photos, which explains why Steve ends up appearing in his own photo tour…

You can Steve in the lobby of The Beverly Arts Center. (Dressed in a snazzy jacket.) This is where you can walk in and buy a ticket to The Vic & Paul Show. It’s also where all the pre-show excitement and hobnobbing will take place before each performance.

This is another angle on the bright and sunny lobby – a pleasant environment that those who attend our Saturday and Sunday matinee performances will be able to enjoy.

Steve wanders upstairs, headed to the theatre balcony. Those who sit in the balcony to watch The Vic & Paul Show will be treated to an excellent view of the subtle bald spot on the back of my head.

This is the view from the stage, looking into the 400-seat house. I love all those colorful seats. This is going to be a really wonderful place to see our show.

Here’s Steve standing on the stage. It’s a deep stage with lots of playing space. I’ll have plenty of room to stagger around during “Whiskey Tasting”.

Here’s another angle on the house. All you folks on the North Side of Chicago should come down and check this theatre out during our run in June. It’s shocking that Evanston doesn’t have a performing arts center like this.

This is the view of the backstage area – where Vic will be getting into all of her hilarious wigs during The Vic & Paul Show. Note the covered baby grand. Steve Rashid can really make a baby grand piano sing. Steve can sing, too. The Beverly Arts Center has two baby grand pianos – but Steve will only be playing one of them. He could play both of them at the same time – but that kind of ostentatious virtuosity went out with Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Here’s one of the four art galleries located in The Beverly Arts Center. What exhibits will be on display during our run in June? Make sure to ask when you’re ordering your tickets for The Vic & Paul Show.

The promotion for our June run is already underway. Get your tickets now!

See you in Chicago’s lovely and historic Beverly neighborhood this June when The Vic & Paul Show brings a celebration of comedy, music, marriage and martinis to The Beverly Arts Center.

For tickets, click here.

Vic & Paul in Beverly Hills

The Vic & Paul Show is coming to Beverly Hills.

Not Rodeo Drive in the 90210.

We’re talking West 111^th Street in the 60655.

We’re talking Beverly Hills on the southwestern edge of the South Side of Chicago. (Known to the locals simply as Beverly.)

Yes, The Vic & Paul Show is going back to Chicago this summer.

And this time, it’s a special homecoming for my wife, Victoria Zielinski – because the show The Chicago Tribune hailed as “Old school sketch comedy done right” will be coming to Vic’s old South Side neighborhood.

The brilliantly funny girl who grew up at 91^st and South Hamilton will be performing just 20 blocks from her childhood home when The Vic & Paul Show runs at The Beverly Arts Center at 2407 W. 111th Street from June 15-24th, 2012.

As always, Vic and I will be accompanied by our great friend, fellow Northwestern alum, and ridiculously talented musical director — “the rather impish and thoroughly amusing Steve Rashid”*. Steve also performs his own brand of satirical songwriting in the show: “songs,” notes Chris Jones of The Chicago Tribune, “that recall the stylings of Tom Lehrer.”

(*According to The Trib’s chief theatre critic, Chris Jones – and we certainly agree.)

Last year, we appeared on WGN radio personality (and Chicago newspaper icon) Rick Kogan’s radio show, The Sunday Papers — and Rick introduced us by saying, “One of the theatrical events of the year is the return of Paul Barrosse and Victoria Zielinski to the Chicago stage with ‘The Vic & Paul Show’. I know it’s a lofty comparison, but you guys are the new Nichols & May, as far as I’m concerned.”

Talk about making us feel at home in Chicago after more than two decades.

Vic and I left the Windy City in 1991 to do TV work in Los Angeles – and raise our three wonderful daughters – but now that our kids are of age we’re back on the stage. And according to Chris Jones in The Chicago Tribune, “domesticity has not dulled the itch of Zielinski and Barrosse for a Chicago comedy stage, a couple of hard-backed chairs, and each other.”

We’ve been having great fun trodding the boards once more with Steve at the piano, beginning with our June 2010 debut at Push Lounge in Los Angeles, directed by our good friend and another NU alum, Evanston’s own Shelly Goldstein. A year later, we brought The Vic & Paul Show to Chicago for the first time at The Prop Theatre in June 2011, followed by a great holiday season run at Mayne Stage in Rogers Park.

Now, we’re taking our “Evening of Comedy, Music, Marriage & Martinis” to Vic’s old stomping grounds in Beverly.

If you live in the Chicago area and you haven’t seen The Vic & Paul Show yet, we hope you can join us at the 400-seat Beverly Arts Center for this run. It’s a wonderful venue for the show – and you may want to get there early to check out the rotating exhibitions of contemporary art in The Beverly Arts Center’s four gallery areas: second floor East Gallery, Bridge Gallery, Theater Gallery and Atrium. These exhibits are free and open to the public.

After the show, you can enjoy the best of Beverly, including some of Vic’s girlhood haunts, like Fox’s Beverly Pizza Pub, or a magnificent frozen summer treat at Rainbow Cone on Western and 92^nd. And, according to Wikipedia, Beverly is home to more Irish-style pubs than any other in Chicago. Satisfying after-show options abound!

Okay, I know what you’re thinking.

Sure, The Vic & Paul Show is crazy funny, The Beverly Arts Center is obviously a great place to see a show, and all those Irish pubs sound like a guaranteed good time – but how in the world did Vic’s old neighborhood get the name Beverly Hills?

That’s because Beverly is the only area in the City of Chicago that has hills: in fact, it’s located on the highest elevation in the city!

So, this June, it can truly be said that The Vic & Paul Show has reached the top.

Join us at the topographical summit of Chicago for two weeks of grown-up fun: sophisticated and irreverent improvisational sketch comedy and songs performed in a splendid theatre in a vibrant, historic neighborhood.

And did I mention Vic grew up there?

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Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation

Tagged as Beverly Arts Center, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Chicago Theatre, improvisational comedy, Morgan Park, Paul Barrosse, Rainbow Cone, Rick Kogan, Shelly Goldstein, South Side, Steve Rashid, The Chicago Tribune, The Practical Theatre, The Practical Theatre Company, The Vic & Paul Show, theatre, Victoria Zielinski

March 27, 2012 · 2:57 pm

Riffmaster & The Rockmes in No Cal: Rock & Roll Rebels for a Good Cause.

Poster by Ron Crawford, of course!

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Filed under Music

Tagged as Brad Hall, Breast Cancer Action, Casey Fox, Maurice Cleary, Paul Barrosse, Peter Van Wagner, Portola Valley, Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation, Rockin' Ronny Crawford, Rockme, Ron Crawford, Rush Pearson, Steve Rashid, Tom Larson

March 7, 2012 · 11:57 pm

30 Years Ago…

We measure our lives in years, but we experience life moment to moment. Some moments in time are more memorable than others. Some are unforgettable. And yet, even our most remarkable moments become generalized in our memories. Years later, we no longer see them in sharp focus. What we remember becomes wrapped in gauze: kept warm and fuzzy.

And then sometimes, even after three busy, event-filled decades, something can stir the memory of a special time in your life and you relive a moment you thought you remembered well — but hadn’t really seen clearly for a long, long while.

Recently, my good friend and college roommate Rob Mendel brought a wonderful moment in time back to life when he posted a vivid series of photographs he took in and around The Practical Theatre on Howard Street in Evanston, on the northern border of Chicago, in the winter of 1981-82.

The halcyon moment in time that Rob captured with his camera was charged with a mix of creativity and youthful energy that would ultimately – in just six more months – change our lives in an unexpected and dramatic way.

It would be, perhaps, too precious to say that Robbie caught us in the last relatively innocent and naïve moment of our young adult lives. But he did.

Asked for his recollections of how he came to take this trove of photos, Rob replied, “I can hardly remember! It was after traveling back to Evanston from Texas on the Big O with Rush, I think. “Beggars Holiday” was in rehearsal. We took publicity shots for that. But am I mixing it up?”

Not really. Beggar’s Holiday opened at The PTC’s John Lennon Auditorium at 703 Howard Street on November 28, 1981 – so Rob’s publicity photos must have been taken in early November, soon after we (The Sturdy Beggars) got back from our muddy stint at The Texas Renaissance Festival.

“The Rockmes were rehearsing, I had my camera with me. I took pix of the Beggars in Texas and again in Evanston.”

Now, here Rob’s memory begins to fade.

Rob’s photos of The PTC’s house band Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation in rehearsal at the JLA were clearly taken after Beggar’s Holiday closed and our 1982 season opener, the improvisational comedy revue The Brothers Bubba, was in rehearsal.

You can tell because I’ve shaved my beggar beard.

So, Rob’s photos of the Rockmes in rehearsal must have been taken in the first months of 1982 – exactly 30 years ago!

The band was formed late in the spring of ’81, and had been playing together less than a year when these shots were snapped.

Looking at the eager, earnest, passionate (and hairy) young garage band that Rob got on film that day in the winter of ’82 – it’s deeply satisfying to know that the Rockme adventure has continued.

In fact, the band shown in these pics is the same group of guys that still manage to reunite and rock together to this day.

Next gig? June 8^th in Portola Valley, California. The beat goes on…

“Mo was two. I took her to the playground a couple of times… Used to chant, “She’s still a baby!” and she’d respond, “I’m not a baby!” She was the cutest thing!”

Okay, these photos just melt my heart. My daughter Maura was, indeed, the cutest thing. Little Mo was less than two years old at the time. (She turned two on July 3^rd, 1982.) Rob snapped her in the lobby of The John Lennon Auditorium – with the “Build-a-Bear” that my mom made for her.Rob also shot this portrait of Maura in the lobby of the JLA with her Godfather Rush Pearson.And with Uncle Brad Hall, our mascot Sri Abdul Aziz, and Godfather Rush.Here’s the delightful toddler Maura with her dad a few doors west up Howard Street from the JLA at the legendary Cottage Restaurant, a classic diner. We’re waiting for old Bob to serve us a couple “chezzies” and a “shooker”. (Six months later, a UPI reporter would interview the cast of The Golden Jubilee at The Cottage to get the story of our sudden, shocking ascent to Saturday Night Live.)

Robbie’s camera also found us in rehearsal for The Brothers Bubba.

In this photo, Gary Kroeger, Jane Muller, your author, Rush Pearson and Brad Hall are rehearsing the musical number, “Macaroni & Cheese.”

In these photos, Brad and I are perfecting our impression of Simon and Garfunkel performing “The Boxer” — another sketch from The Bothers Bubba.

The Bothers Bubba opened at The JLA on April 1, 1982 and became the PTC’s biggest hit yet, playing to sold-out houses that demonstrated our 42-seat storefront was too small to contain our rapidly growing success.

Events were moving quickly, success was advancing swiftly, and as Bob Dylan said, the times they were a-changing.

Less than half a year after Rob’s photos were taken, the Practical Theatre Company, in partnership with Bernie Sahlins, owner of The Second City, opened our new cabaret theatre space at Piper’s Alley with The Golden 50^th Anniversary Jubilee — a collection of our best sketches and songs performed by Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and your humble author.

Robbie Mendel’s camera caught the spirit and drama of an unsuspecting cast of characters doing what they love – with no idea of what was to come.

“I remember that I had bought a camera, because the rental house I was working at in Hollywood had a bunch of guys who mentored me to get a camera and learn how to take pictures properly. I was using B&W for publicity pix for the Beggars, I believe, and that’s why they are not in color.”

Who cares about color? The classic black and white format adds to the drama of these memories: a glorious moment in time – just half a year before our lives were transformed — captured so indelibly by Robbie Mendel’s camera.

“When I returned to Hollywood, I landed my PA job on the TV movie with Susan St. James and I laid a publicity packet about PTC on Dick Ebersol there, but I think the PTC got on his radar separately, also. These pix preceded all of that, eh?”

That’s Rob Mendel for you. I never knew (or maybe I’d forgotten) that Robbie had hipped Saturday Night Live Executive Producer Dick Ebersol to The Practical Theatre just months before The Golden Jubilee opened at Piper’s Alley.It’s another intriguing brick in the wonderwall of that seminal moment in our lives.

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Tagged as Brad Hall, Golden 50th Jubilee, John Lennon Auditorium, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Maura Murphy-Barrosse, Ms. Maura, Paul Barrosse, Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation, rock n' roll, Rockin' Ronny Crawford, Rockme, Rush Pearson, Saturday Night Live, The Practical Theatre

January 3, 2012 · 10:53 pm

Blog 2011: The Second Year’s Voyage In Review…

My 2011 concluded on a fabulously positive note as “The Vic & Paul Show” enjoyed a successful two-week run at Mayne Stage in Chicago. It was a holiday homecoming that warmed the winter chill with a gathering of the very best, most supportive, fun, generous, talented, and entertaining friends that a person could possibly cherish. Victoria and I consider ourselves truly blessed in the camaraderie department –and this holiday season proved what an embarrassment of riches our community of friends has become. (Including our new friends at Mayne Stage, who handled it all with class, professionalism and a welcome sense of humor.)

And speaking of talented and entertaining friends — New Year’s weekend rocked with two performances by Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation — one that closed “The Vic & Paul Show” at Mayne Stage, and another that rang in the New Year at The Prop Theatre. It was a raucous, celebratory sign-off on an eventful year: full of drama, politics, resurgent activism — and the ongoing clown car routine that is the Republican Party nomination process.

2011 was also the second year for this blog.

As of this writing, Paul’s Voyage of Discovery & Etc. has attracted over 67,000 views — with 44,750 in 2011 alone. That’s double the number of views (22,250) in 2010. I’ve made 165 posts since this blog began and all of you have contributed 935 comments. The blog saw it’s busiest day this year when, on March 17, 2011, 491 viewers checked out the site to read, among other things, “A Reply To My Conservative Friend.” Politics and history remain among the most popular topics on Paul’s Voyage of Discovery & Etc.

This is not the real subscription sign up box. The real one is further to the right. And up a little...

I’m especially gratified by the 80 subscribers who have signed on to have my posts automatically delivered to them via e-mail. Are you a subscriber? If not — just look to your right at the photo of the saluting Matey, then look below the photo and follow the simple instructions to “Hop Aboard!”

My posts on this blog still largely stick to the main topics I established at the outset: history, adventure, politics, sailing and rock & roll. And to what type of posts were readers of this blog most attracted this year? What follows is a list of The Top Ten Most Read Posts of 2011, listed in order of the most views.

Note: Just click on the title of each post to access the original article.

1. Happy Birthday Bill of Rights!

On December 15, 2010 – the 215th birthday of our Bill of Rights – I wrote this basic primer on the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. For some reason, it’s become the most-read post in the history of this blog. I guess that’s because Americans still give a damn about their rights and are keen to understand their Constitutional foundation.

2. Aliens Among Us?

I’ve always wondered where singular, epochal, “out of this world” geniuses like William Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci and Bob Dylan came from. So, on January 26, 2011, I wrote this speculation on the possible alien origin of such monumental minds. Evidently, my curiosity (if not my Erich Van Daniken “ancient astronaut” fantasy) is shared by a lot of people who read my blog in the last year.

3. History & Honeymoon: Part Three

This post was also the #3 post in 2010. 21 years ago, my wife Victoria and I went to Gettysburg and other Civil War battlefields on our honeymoon! I needed no other assurance that I had married the perfect woman. Last year, on our 20th anniversary, we returned to Gettysburg. Now both students of the battle, we walked the battlefield on July 1, 2 and 3, 2010 on the 147th anniversary of that critical conflict. My four-part account of our battlefield tramping became one of the most popular items on the blog. (Originally posted July 20, 2010)

4. History & Honeymoon: Part Four

2011 was the 150^th anniversary of the commencement of the American Civil War – and that might be the reason that two of my “History & Honeymoon” posts are among the most-read this past year, including this one, posted on July 26, 2010. This post covers everything from my wife Victoria and I battle tramping Pickett’s Charge on the third day of Gettysburg –to our visit to Philadelphia and the eccentric, visionary artwork of Isaiah Zagar.

5. The Saints Come Marching In…

This was the #1 post in 2010 — and, like the Saints, has shown staying power. The New Orleans Saints got 2010 off to a great start by winning the Super Bowl. So, why does a man who was born in Cleveland, went to college and met his wife in Chicago, and moved to Los Angeles two decades ago care if the New Orleans Saints finally won a Super Bowl after years of epic gridiron failure? Simple: my daddy was New Orleans born and raised. Who dat say what about dem Saints? (Originally posted February 8, 2010)

6. Bazooka Joe, Jay Lynch & Me

One of the first posts I wrote for this blog back on January 9, 2010 celebrated my brief but soul-satisfying collaboration with the legendary underground comix artist, Jay Lynch, who gave Vic and I the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to write a series of Bazooka Joe comics. It was one of the great chapters in my creative career. The Practical Theatre Company, Saturday Night Live, Behind the Music and Bazooka Joe. Can I retire now?

7. 10 Rays of Sunshine…

The general worldview looked bleak on November 9, 2010, when I decided to list some positive stuff to focus on amid the gathering gloom, including a stunning victory by the lowly Cleveland Browns over the vaunted New England Patriots, an upswing on Wall Street, and the return of the delicious though gastronomically questionable McRib to McDonald’s restaurants. Obviously, many blog readers shared my desperate desire for a few shafts of light amid the darkness.

8. The Wrecking Crew

Glen Campbell, Hal Blaine, Carol Kay, Tommy Tedesco, Leon Russell, Earl Palmer: the cream of Los Angeles studio musicians in the late 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s became known as “The Wrecking Crew”. I’m thrilled that my March 21, 2011 blog article celebrating Tommy Tedesco’s son’s marvelous documentary film about these rock & roll legends has proven to be such a popular post. If you haven’t done it already, start a Google search on “The Wrecking Crew” now. Until then, your rock & roll education is not complete.

9. Baseball Season Opens: Of Mud Hens & More…

This is the third post on this list that appeared on last year’s most-read list. It was #4. It seems readers still love those Mud Hens. What was written as a tribute to The Practical Theatre Company’s contribution to the Chicago Theatre 16-inch Softball League became a post that hundreds of Toledo Mud Hens fans found online, attracted to the info and photos of Toledo Mud Hens history — especially that picture of Jamie Farr. Go figure. Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! (Originally posted April 6, 2010)

10. Growing Up in the Space Age

The last American space shuttle launch inspired this July 14, 2011 remembrance of my personal connection to the Space Age. This popular post especially salutes my fellow Ohioan, John Glenn, who served as both the first man to orbit the Earth and as a Senator from my home state. I wish my three daughters had grown up with anything half as exciting and inspirational as The Race to the Moon.

So, that’s the best of 2011. Stay tuned. Subscribe. Post those replies!

Here’s to another adventurous voyage in 2012!