Andrew Burns

Q: When was the last time you stayed awake for 24 hours?
A: On the way back from a gig in the Hamptons in October 2007. The van my friend and I were driving broke down at 1AM about an hour and 45 minutes outside of New York. I used my AAA card and we waited on the shoulder of the highway until a guy showed up in a tow truck (he was originally from one of the boroughs.) All three of us rode in the front until we got to a gas station at some forgotten intersection on Long Island that looked like Mississippi. We left the van there (permanently, as it turned out), and took all the equipment with us in a cab — neck of the upright bass sticking out the window — to an LIRR station, just in time to see the train leave. A man appeared, a janitor drinking beer out of a bag, and proposed we share a cab for 20 miles to another LIRR station.

We did.

• Join Tomahawk and New York’s best improv teams on Fri, Nov. 6, 2009 @ 8PM at The Sage Theater in Times Square (711 Seventh Ave, 2F) for 24-consecutive hours of improv. (Facebook invite | Tomahawk tumblr)