I was honored to be on IM Boston this week as their "Boston Highlight".
I agreed to be featured because I loved their documentary/human interest story approach.
Check it out.
They did a nice job!  :-)

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                                                              Today's Diary Entry...

Job interview in my head:


Job Interviewer: What's your biggest weakness?

Me: That everyone seems to be able to beat me at arm wrestling.

Job Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Me: Undefeatable in arm wrestling.

Happy Monday!

Here's a chihuahua in a dress:

I took this picture in Cambridge awhile back when I was walking down the street to a comedy show I was about to perform on. I took the picture because:
a) It was adorable.
and
b) I wanted to confirm I wasn't hallucinating! ;-)

The Hot Air Balloon Incident

This is a picture of a hot air balloon that hangs in my parents' home. It isn't the best picture. It was taken at nighttime(which explains the bad lighting) and it was taken in a rush(which might explain why it's slightly blurred).

The picture was taken on a night in the 1980's when me and my family were spending our summer in Deerfield, New Hampshire. We were indoors when we suddenly heard a loud roaring noise outside. It sounded like a lion and I assumed it was but when we scurried outside to take a look we found out that it was actually a hot air balloon falling out of the sky. It ended up landing in the center of a pond behind our cottage. It was a big to do to everyone who lived around that pond. Everyone came together to help the 2 people on the hot air balloon get out of the balloon basket and get to land.

In my little 6 year old world. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. Whenever I could, I would tell anyone I met about how it had happened because I was convinced nothing else this interesting would ever occur in my life.

I finally stopped telling people about it(yesterday). ;-)

I appreciate your effort.

A few months ago I was driving down a highway and drove past a large dancing tooth. It was a man or woman dressed up as a tooth and dancing on the road side. It looked like this: 

Their purpose seemed to be to "lure" people off the highway so they would make an appointment at the dentist's office housed directly behind him or her. Or maybe it was to do a walk in exam. It had to be. Why would you bother to lure anyone off of the highway otherwise?

Sometimes in moments of silence, like when I am waiting in a waiting room I will think of the dancing tooth and wonder what they're up to. How did they find out about that job? Was it listed on craigslist? If so, what category did it fall under? ETC or medical? Did the person who got hired have a lot of competition? Or were they hired out of desperation because no one else seemed to want the job? Another part of me worries that maybe they weren't initially hired as a dancing tooth. Maybe it was sprung on them after many years of working as a receptionist. One day it was just announced out of nowhere: Hey Roxie! New policy at our dentist's office. Receptionists will now twilight as our mascot, the dancing tooth! Certainly people will get excited about having their teeth drilled after seeing a human being dressed as a dancing tooth on the side of the highway!. 

And that was that, Roxie had no choice in the matter.

I wonder if the dancing tooth idea has been successful. Has anyone actually walked in and made an appointment after seeing it? Hey you guys! Just saw the dancing tooth! It reminded me about how my teeth are rotting away! So off course I immediately swerved off the highway to finally make a dentist appointment!

I just hope the dancing tooth is happy. That's all. That's the blog post.

We've all got something...

I go to Whole Foods once a week. I don't go food shopping there. I just go there once a week and buy one or two items. I'll just power walk over to what I need, grab it, pay for it and then get the hell out of there. If I could I would sprint to what I needed but I can't due to a back issue I've been having. I haven't been able to run in 3 months and have been going to physical therapy for this. I had never even been to physical therapy before. Not being able to run is driving  me crazy(by the way). So much so that I felt the need to post this rambling post on my blog.  But this is all I will tell you about not being able to run because if I tell to your more about this I won't be able able to do it without raising my voice and I'll probably develop a high blood pressure problem. I'm going to assume all high blood pressure problems are caused by people not being able to run. I don't care if I'm wrong in assuming that. I'm going to assume it anyway and call it a fact(in my head). Also, going to physical therapy for the first time is awesome and comical but I'm not ready to discuss it right now. So leave me be.

Anyway, back to Whole Foods. I'm ready to discuss THAT. I power walk to the 1 or 2 items instead of sprint to them,  then power walk to the register instead of sprint to it, then power walk to the parking lot instead of sprint to it. It's a practice of self control. Do I have what it takes to just buy 1 or 2 items? USUALLY!
But I've had my moments where I've lost control in there and bought SEVERAL items. So many that someone could have easily mistaken me for someone who was going full throttle food shopping at Whole Foods. Which is not practical for me at this stage in life. I'm not sure I ever want it to be either. I like my "power walk and flee the scene" system. It suits me. I love Whole Foods. LOVE it. But I think it's best for me to have quick moments with it.

One time I went to Whole Foods and a girl was riding an exercise bike at the entrance and greeting everyone as they entered end exited. Why was she doing this? I don't know. And you know what? I don't even want to know! Did she work there? Probably! Was she a mentally unstable gal who took the liberty of bringing her own exercise bike to Whole Foods and greeting each and every one of their customers? I hope so! That would be a much better story.

That's it you guys. That's my blog post for the day. I feel a lot better. Hope all is well.

Happy Easter!(to those celebrating)

This is what happens when I brainstorm new ideas for paintings:

There's no doubt that the Boston Marathon will be extra special this year after the horrible events that occurred last year. It's still hard to believe that anyone would intentionally do what those bombers did, but they did...

I dealt with my grief of all of it by running, writing, doing stand-up and painting. Those sorts of things are always what I use as my therapy. :-)

Here's a painting I did last year:

It's supposed to represent the spirit of Boston.

#ThrowBackThursday

In the tradition of the throw back thursday that goes on on facebook and twitter,
I'm proud to present to you this amazing rap song I wrote in 4th grade.
Try not to be overwhelmed by my mad rap skillz! ;-)


Yo my name is Val
And I live in Saugus, MA
I got a brown house
And it is the max
Say just yesterday I was chillin in the street
When a big red beet came and ran over me
I was flat
Flat as could be
Then to my surprise I died and came back

I buy most of my art supplies at Artist and Craftsman in Saugus.
I stopped by recently to pick up a stretched canvas and saw some blocks of wood at the register.
I had never painted on wood before so I grabbed one and thought it would be fun to try painting on it. It turned out the blocks of wood were actually part of a promotion where the store was asking customers to paint a cupcake on the block of wood(after buying it) then bring it back to the store so it can be hung for about a month and be entered in a raffle.

So I did that.

Painting on wood is little different than a canvas surface. I really liked it and it was easier than I thought but I think I need to do it more often to get used to it and improve.
I'm glad I tried!

This is what I did:


Stop by the store and check it out in person if you want(it's only 4"x4"). It's hanging amongst other cool and interesting cupcake on wood paintings that other artists did.
The store is on the south bound side of route 1 in Saugus in that plaza that has a Starbucks and Skechers outlet.

Towards the end of 2013 I was asked if I would like to put my paintings up in an art gallery and said, "yes". This all happened via facebook. As a result,  I ended up having my 1st ever art opening!
It was called,  Ridonkadonkdonk!(Val Kappa's Art Show). 
Here's a picture from outside the gallery:

Just having the title of my show on the front window of the gallery was exciting enough for me but to actually have my paintings hanging there and hosting a comedy show for my opening on top of that was pretty awesome.

My show featured  26 of my paintings and stayed hanging at the gallery from 11/30/13-1/4/14. The opening got a really good turnout and I sold a few paintings. The opening was also a comedy show that I hosted that featured 4 comedy friends and went really well. I pretty much never host shows. I think before this I had literally only hosted 3 or 4 comedy shows in my comedy career. For some reason I've always either headlined: doing 45 minutes to an hour, featured: doing a half hour, or just done guest spots for 5-10 minutes for the purposes of fine tuning newer material and "just cuz".

What a fun way to end 2013!

I can now cross "have an art opening/solo art show at an art gallery" off my bucket list! ;-)

I guess I better think of some new bucket list ideas...:-)

Hey Everyone,

How's it going?
Have you checked out my new website yet?
Well in case you haven't, here it is:

http://www.valkappaart.com

Give it a look and see and let me know what you think.
It's mainly devoted to my paintings which I will be putting up in a gallery fairly soon.
I'm really excited to be art-ing it up again. :-)

Happy Memorial Day, Everyone!

Thank you to all the life riskers!

Yesterday I ran the "Boston's Run to Remember" half marathon. It was my 3rd year in a row doing this particular race. I almost chickened out and didn't run this year when I was saw that it was raining when I woke up in the morning. Oddly(or not odd at all), the reason I didn't back out was because when driving over Tobin bridge and paying the toll, the toll operator saw that I was wearing a running number and said,

Hey, good luck in the race!

It made me feel obligated to do it then. I thought,

I have to now!  The toll booth operator wished me luck. She'll be horribly disappointed if I don't go through with this. How will I explain it to her(even though I won't have to explain to her since we don't even know each other's name and will never cross paths again)?!

So I went through with it and ran it and am glad I did.

Here's a quick clip of my stand-up from about a month ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkM9iKhLm1A

Give it a watch.
I actually like this clip.

I remember before I had started doing stand-up I always thought it would be cool to do it and be able to do it in a conversational style. Which I thought would be VERY hard and it was hard. At least hard for me. So I think back then this is how I would have wanted my stand-up to be.

If I can dig it up, the next clip I will try to post is a quick segment from the first demo tape I ever made. It was taped in Los Angeles(back in 2000) at a venue called "Luna Park"(I'm not sure if that place still exists).
The best part of that tape actually wasn't even my stand-up...it was when i got a complimentary "heckle" from a woman in the audience. She yelled,
You make me laugh! at me.
The nerve!
She must have been really drunk.

I guess now that I told you what happened there's no need to post a clip of it...

Had fun at The Comedy Studio this weekend! Thanks to everyone who came out!

Last night I did some stand-up on a really fun show at Midway Cafe(in Jamaica Plain) via the Union Square Round Table. I usually get a bit worried when I do stand-up at a music venue because I fear the audiences that show up will just want to see music and will be annoyed when I come out and just "start talking".
This has never been the case though the audiences have always turned out to be awesome and into hearing/seeing some comedy. Luckily that was what happened last night too. Phew!

I'm trying to rework a story I wrote 10 years and fine tune it then tape it then NEVER tell it again. I had  forgotten about this story that is a bit of a time capsule for a moment of my life. Since it's such a part of my past it's been weird to tell it. I enjoy telling it but am looking forward to letting it go!
Am I being vague enough for you? :-)

Anyway thanks so much to everyone who came out to the show and to my friends at the Union Square Round Table for having me on their show in the first place!

In the winter I always walk about wearing an absurd amount of layers and looking as though I am about to embark on an expedition to the Arctic. I think this sort of effects my personality and the way I behave in those months. What I wear always has an effect on me in that way. I feel like I'm not myself in the winter.

It isn't until April when the multiple layers of clothing are no longer needed that I act like myself again.
I'm a lot more functional too. Wearing less clothes makes me an effective human being.

BOSTON,

Just a heads up...
I'll be part of the line-up at The Comedy Studio in Harvard Square in Cambridge on Friday 4/5 and Saturday 4/6.
Both shows start at 8pm.
$12 cover.
Come on out to a show(if you feel like it)!
I'll be doing a short set both nights(about 7-10 minutes).
If you decide to go to a show I HIGHLY recommend getting your tickets in advance off of the club's website: http://www.thecomedystudio.com

Yay for laughter and fun!

This morning at 6am a woman called me and left a message on my voicemail saying:

 Matt! Can you come into the post office at 7am?! We need you. Shelly can't come in today. Call me back and let me know you got this message, ok?!

After listening to the message, I thought, Poor Matt...I hope he doesn't get fired...

Then I went back to sleep.