It’s not April 1st until tomorrow, in case you think this is a joke. For once, it isn’t.

I hadn’t paid any attention to the Oscar nominations when they were announced a couple weeks ago, but an article today about one of the nominees, Paul Raci, caught my attention, because, guess what, he and I took improv classes together in 1979-80.

I have some interesting memories of Paul. We were friends, though we definitely had different ways of letting loose on the weekends. He was a very intense guy, and certainly, as evidenced by his newly-found acclaim, a hell of a lot more talented than I was.

Nevertheless, I can tell you that he and I shared the stage in a scene where we, along with two others (one of whom was the cause of me running in the Chicago Marathon after a night of debauchery – but that’s another story, which I have told before), put Harry Belafonte to shame, as we turned the venue into a banana boat and went to work while we sang (even me, with a little help from my friends) Day-O.

Congratulations Paul.