blog #10 - Fests of Futures Past

written by: Raye Maddox

Author’s Note: Everything you are about to read from here on out is verified journalism and the truth. I have sent the documents I used for this blog post to many credible sources, ranging from researchers to scientists, and the tests all came back verified as real. This will be hard to believe at first, and even harder to believe as you continue reading, but I assure you, dear reader, this really happened and may still potentially happen. Time is a fluid, fickle, tricky little thing so it is unknown if the events detailed here will still happen, or, if by publishing this, we have entered a new split timeline where they no longer will due to our awareness of those events (pseudo-quantum level stuff, folks).

   Up until Thursday’s Blood Moon I was stumped on what to write for my government-mandated and assigned blog post for the Dallas Indie Comedy Festival blog. Should it be a listicle? Review-based? An essay on some bizarre topic? An interview? A diary entry? I just couldn’t figure it out, so I looked up at the Blood Moon in the early hours of Friday morning and a spark came upon me. 
   I mean this literally.
   In the center of the Blood Moon a spark shot out and grew larger and larger by the second, until it touched down right beside me like an arrow from heaven. There was a blinding light as it came down, and once my eyes adjusted I could see there was a capsule of a smooth make I could not properly conceive of. Glancing upon this thing of smooth metal and neon track lighting there was an immediate recognition within my very being which caused me to wonder if this capsule came from the future. A light mist slid off the creation and upon its body I spotted a slight divot, implying a handle. Ensuring the metal was cool to the touch, I lightly placed my fingertips inside the divot, and finding it safe to apply more pressure I lifted open a hatch. Inside this capsule, which was about three feet long and could easily be carried in two hands, I found a journal. Opening it and reading the words inside gave me the truest shock of my life.

Recreation of the event described here within

    My god, I thought, I recognize this writing: for it was my own!
   I gasped and dropped the journal, stepping back from this star-born missile. My mind reeled at not just this revelation but the next which slammed across my thinking like a brick: the dates inside were dated from the year 2035! Ten years my future! Remarkable! I hastened away to my private lodge and began to delve into this diary from future me, clearly sent back for some sort of purpose, don’t you agree?
   In an even odder twist of fate upon inspection I found the journal to be missing the majority of its pages. The only set of pages not ripped out detailed seven days in mid-April of 2035…the tenth anniversary of Dallas Indie Comedy Festival. I fainted immediately. 
   Coming to hours later I began my review of the entries in earnest. Dear reader, I can not fully divulge everything written in those pages, but I will try to detail to you large brushstrokes of what Dallas Indie Comedy Festival looks like in the far-off year of 2035. Sit down in a comfortable chair that you do not mind potentially passing out in, and continue reading this blog entry.​

A Postcard paper-clipped to Night 1's entry

Night 1 - Sunday, April 8th, 2035
    The 10th DICF starts on a Sunday and is the beginning of seven full days of comedy around the Dallas area. Every night of the fest is hosted in a different neighborhood of Dallas, with this “tit-off” party (which I can only assume is the new, future version of the word “kick-off”) happening in Reunion Tower. Many notable Dallas celebs are there, including Luka Doncic who is back playing for the Mavs with two robot legs, and someone named Percy Harrick who donated one-million dollars into the Fest that year.
    There is no show on this night and only serves for the local performers to network, pick up their passes, and take a sneak-peek at the new merch on sale that year (more on this later). Also at this Tit-Off Party there is a toast made by Beth Jones and Stefan Newman via some sort of hologram machine. They state they are currently hosting a show on the moon and have a shuttle back in the morning.

Night 2 - Monday, April 9th, 2035
    The first official show happens on this Monday, in Uptown, being two hours long and composed only of one troupe called The Lonesome Gov., a one-man (two-hour) show performed by Jeremy Duchin. Based on other information throughout the entries I can confidently say he has been the Governor of Texas for at least two years up to this point. This specific show has won him three Provies, from a national televised Improv Award show in the future, and guests in the audience of this 200-Seater sold out show include Barack Obama and Toni Collete. After the show, Mike White offers Jeremy a starring role in the final season of The White Lotus, due out in early 2036.

Night 3 - Tuesday, April 10th, 2035
    A jam takes the bulk of Tuesday night, in Deep Ellum, and is truly when the spirit of DICF begins. The whole night is dedicated to this jam and serves as a mixer for the majority of local performers and students who did not get into the festival line-ups with their own troupes/acts. In the entry are names of improvisers completely unknown to me at this time (in 2025), though a handful I do recognize, but must remain secret to you, reader. A joke is in a set about “Brick-Pushers” which gets the performer boo’d off the stage and thrown out onto the street. Unknown to me what, or who, this is in a reference to, but definitely something to keep our eyes on. 
    The merch booth sells out of DICF Lunchboxes and DICF Molotov Cocktail-Mix. 

Real image taped onto Night 3's entry

Night 4 - Wednesday, April 11th, 2035
    Bishop Arts, one character showcase, one improv show, and one “Half-Time Fest Headliner”, which seems to be a big name the producers bring in halfway through the Festival, bifurcating this week into two mini-fests, in a way. The HTFH is Ben Swartz who has made five Sonic movies by this point and is now a Dallas local when LA, Chicago, and New York were wiped off the map. “Swartz and Tortz” is a two-person show with Swartz and Hidalgo Tortz, a puppet, fully sentient, which Swartz has performed alongside for a number of years ever since the “Felt-verse Incursion”.
    The entry here is not clear what happens exactly to those major comedy hubs, but it is noted the events were not significant losses of life. Simply, and I quote, those cities “moved on, from comedy and this realm”. 

Night 5 - Thursday, April 12th, 2035
    Neighborhood of Greenville, four shows, beginning at 7pm and running into the late hour of midnight. The shows are hosted by and in “The Independent Comedy Playhouse” (ICP) off Greenville Avenue. Three of the four shows are Clown-Centric. Who runs this theater is not detailed, but the entry for the night does imply it’s run potentially by a clone of a current Dallas Improviser, a rumor still being investigated in 2035. The shows sell out and there is a news clipping attached to the entry, headline reading: “The Best Night of DICF 2035”. The article has quotes from a few patrons and performers, with one stating “what that clown did has forever changed comedy and the city of Dallas”.
   Starting around this entry I have begun to piece together that Dallas, and the country, has dramatically changed over the decade. Dallas specifically has become a hub resembling something out of Blade Runner and comedy is a required credit in most Texas public schools.  

Night 6 - Friday, April 13th, 2035
    (No details of this night’s shows are given. Instead the entry is dedicated to a detailed accounting of Joel’s movements throughout the night. Starting at 7:45pm, Joel the Frog arrives via a Quad-Gracer (a sketch is drawn of this and my best description is it’s a hover car with four turbine engines). Joel is dressed in a suit and drinks a few martinis as he circulates the festival, watching shows and mingling. At one point he excuses himself to “The Little Tadpole’s Room”. I tail him (pun not intended) as he slips out a window there. Joel scales the building, confronting a hooded assassin on the roof. They have a skirmish and the assassin is unmasked (the identity will remain secret, reader, though I can assure you it is someone reading this very blog), but not before this adversary reveals a cloaked drone hovering above the festival venue, intending to wipe it off the map. What follows is a sequence out of a Mission:Impossible movie, but Joel manages to take out the assassin and the drone safely without anyone below in the Festival being aware. Joel returns to the festival, dusting off his tux, and the entry ends there.)

Night 7 - Saturday, April 14th, 2035
    The final night of the DICF 2035 has everyone in good spirits. Located on a giant complex of boats and barges in White Rock Lake the final block of shows go off without a hitch. Ten years has tempered and refined a tried-and-true Festival production system to give the ultimate comedy experience in the world. In this entry it is revealed that due to a climate-crisis a new energy source was found in the last few years: laughter. Around the festival are devices which harness the good vibes and chuckles of all and this in turn powers the festival itself: a remarkable positive feedback loop hither-to-undreamt-of. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this seems similar to how Pixar’s Monsters Inc. ends, but alas, I can’t make this stuff up.

Author's recreation of Laugh Canisters being charged

   In conclusion, DICF in ten years has become a festival one doesn’t miss. Even in the closing entry there is this tone of fondness looking back and missing the days of the first Fest, the very one happening to us in the present very soon! Many curious mysteries stemmed from my reading, and again I must apologize for giving a broad overview of the entries. However what I can say is we should all look forward to Festival time every year, for the world is a scary, chaotic place, but the Dallas Indie Comedy Festival is always a time and place to forget about your worries and to have fun.
   But I suppose…we will just have to find out for ourselves.  

The lower half in question (Editor's Note: This is technically the lower two-thirds, if anything)

​Raye Maddox is a performer and producer, best identified by the lower half of his body where he often dresses like a school yard nerd. He currently produces three of Dallas' Indie Comedy shows: Monday Night Feast, Coarse Grind, and Indie Night. Hobbies currently include reading comic books and playing Split Fiction with his boyfriend. You will find him at DICF, if you can catch him, hustling around making sure all the details are perfect, for that is where the devil usually lives.