I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

We got interviewed on Saturday by a NY Times writer about our experiences as 102 creators. He came over and talked to Bill, Kirk and me for like an hour… we cleaned for like 5 hours beforehand, in case they wanted to take a picture as he mentioned on the phone. He asked questions that were kind of confusing (“What about shows that always have changing casts?” I assume a reference to 101’s “The ‘Bu” since I can’t think of any shows here that replaced their cast members).

Afterwards Kirk said I came across as negative in the interview, which bothered me for the rest of the weekend. I didn’t think I was, but since the huge uproar here in the comedy community over a NY Post article in which mostly anonymous comedy writers bashed SNL I guess I should have been more guarded in my comments about anything. From my previous experiences with press I can’t imagine we’ll have more quoted from our interview than “’We made My Wife the Ghost,’ commented Dyna Moe, 27; Kirk Damato, 26; and Bill Buckendorf, 35; from their East Village railroad apartment that doubles as their production studio.” Only one of our names will be spelled wrong. (The reporter seemed most adamant about clearly determining whether we lived in the Lower East Side or the East Village. )

It’s still exciting to be interviewed about anything. I got interviewed along with a group of other cast members from Matt Walsh’s “WallyVision” back in 1999 for the Times. And did a phone interview for Backstage (along with a gabillion other comedy people) for some feature on improv in like 2000-ish… I never even saw that one in print. Feature Feature got interviewed twice by school papers and both times the interviewer decided to only talk to part of the cast since 9 of us was too many at once.

We’re wrapping up editing on our new pilot, ‘The First Steps,’ tonight, hopefully. It’s our first pilot with “extras,” which I borrowed from Harold Night and we shot in the UCB office. I felt like a pied piper of Extras… everyone merrily following me from the theatre with absolutely no idea what we were filming. Dave Thunder even came and didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing; he just followed. We don’t really know if this one will be screened, much less voted for, since a lot of new people seem to be submitting this month.

I appeared as an extra in Will Hines’ last minute submission “The Block,” which he and DeCoster decided to make in one day. I dug out my Girl Crush sais and pink hair dye for it; Kirk wore my Riff Randal baseball jacket and aviator helmet. We both probably looked like complete douches, but it was close enough to Halloween that no one gave us shit on the street.

As of this morning, Kirk is very excited about filming a parody of “Pet Keeping with Marc Marrone,” and I contend that show is already beyond all parody. We have “Cakey” still on deck, pending a location. I want to also get Instant Cinema together to make a pilot as a group but that may be logistical nightmare. Kirk’s next big one might be a D&D-themed pilot (largely inspired by the photos in Museum Replicas Limited... which amazingly does NOT have a web catalog) ; I still plan on doing “NTGC2040 the TV.”

Lots of TV stuff in the future… enough so that I will make a “102” tab for my blog. How about that!

Will Hines put a kickass spam filter on the site, perhaps cutting into the endless “comments” from Online Poker, A+ Replica Watches and Instant Viagra cluttering up my back end.

I have Jury Duty today. I’m here in the waiting room right now, which has thoughtfully included ethernet cables and powerstrips for NY workaholics. However, the numbers are not particularly well thought our… 100 seats, 4 workstations.

The “invitation” said 8 AM, which I arrived fashionable early for, but then the street baliff guarding the door told me I couldn’t go in for about ten minutes, honey. So 8 AM was the door time. I looked in the windows of the Odeon (closed) across the street and the Bouly Bakery (just opening). When I was allowed in at 8 AM, the lights were off and the place was empty. About five past the room manager noticed me sitting there and graciously turned on the lights and added they usually didn’t get started until 8:45. So, begins the waiting.

I could do “work” here but my latest flyer commission involves drawing a sambo head on a photo; which I believe would earn me some non-judicious looks from my fellow jurors walking by. I also can’t have a camera (or camera-equipped cellphone; should I do a daring 200×300 pixel expose on the squishy-seated room full of tired civic duty doers) in here and the other thing on my to do list is take 24 pictures of pointing hands. So, stalemate.

Am I going to have to give up my computer station at some point? Would it be rude not to? Without my cellphone I don’t have a clock and I want the time always in view… so I can watch every agonizing minute tick by.

[started writing this 3 weeks ago, finally finished]

Most of the time I come to by blog, it’s to delete the 4 million spam comments I get… most of which are about online poker ( and online poke-her… yikes!). I blame Matt DeCoster, as a major poker enthusiast, for this. I also blame him for BLOWING MY FUCKING MIND by doing insane trapeze stunts in the back of a Williamsburg bar last night.

Matt DeCoster, four years ago or maybe more at this point, signed up for improv classes and trapeze lessons on the same day. He is a master of both now. I was invited to his last annual recital while on the improv team MONKEYDICK with him. He made it clear that he was severely disappointed that none of us came out. So, I made up for it and came this year despite having no inter-team-ial obligations to come. Kirk came with me, for he does have team-ial loyalty to think of and also, I won’t go to Brooklyn alone at night anymore.

It’s at a bar in outer Williamsburg—Union Pool—which used to be either a swimming pool supply store or a storage facility for billiards tables or an actual swimmingpool that magically now looks like a shitty Williamsburg bar. Who knows. I went to this place like two years ago when I was out looking to get drunk and hooked up but Union Pool did neither of those things for me then. I never went back.

We got there bright and early since it was first-come-first-trapezed and Will Hines, a trapezey veteran, said it gets mad crowded. The earlier DeCoster-less show was still going on when we got there so we positioned ourselves out of the way of the exitting crowd but in a prime “we were here first” area. One couple in the courtyard seemed to be practicing a Vaudeville routine; I highly anticipated seeing it 1000 feet up in the air.

Will forgot to mention the shows regularly start VERY LATE. Like Jonathan Richman concert late. We waited over an hour before the house was open and even then there were no chairs… one row was set aside for the elderly parents of some of the performers and the injured (trapeze casualties!?) and a crazy woman who was yammering to herself. No one wanted to take the seats so we crammed in close to the back room… a garage-like space connected to the main bar with maybe 25’ ceilings and a hard cement floor with a 2” gymnastics mat in the center of the room above which hung 3 jerry-rigged trapezes. The show was undecorated… no “theme” this year unlike previous “Under the Sea” and “Card Sharks (the TV Game Show)” themed events I had seen photos and costume scraps of.

The show was hosted by what Kirk said was a bearded lady and I thought was a preternaturally high-voiced hippie man who was involved in some other fringe circus/burlesque waste of time. Time management was a little off at the event, as if the endless wait to get in hadn’t tipped their hand, as between each act trapezes were raised, lowered, adjusted, secured, etc. for 10 minutes.

Most of the acts were impressive enough… an ironic 80s hit played and various tattooed woment dangled and twisted on the ropes and bars of the slightly swaying trapeze. One girl did a little bit of flair and took a shot hanging upside down and then lit a cigarette while perch on the bar. One had a slightly Belly-dance themed bit. There were two girls who had feathery tops and did a bit of a chickeny head-bob and some flappy wing motions to a techno mix with “turkey in the straw” as played by Mr. Softee as a predominant sample.

Then came DeCoster… no frills, black unitard, Bowie’s “Under Pressure” comes on and he procedes to demonstrate without a doubt he’s the strongest man in the room by supporting his entire weight by his arm, foot, back of ankle, nape of neck, wrist as he dangles and sometimes FREE FALLS from the top of the ropes to within an inch of the rubber mat (the pompadour touching it). He had a death-stare of intensity and sometimes the labored look of a man having his arms ripped out of the sockets… no winking to the audience… this shit is HARD. You can hear a pin drop during the stunts, except for Crazy Woman in the seats who says “It’s HIM It’s HIM It’s HIM” over and over again like she’s just seen Christ’s face manifest in a three-bean salad . “Under Pressure” is crescendoing, Matt makes his final insane dismount onto the mat and the crowd EXPLODES. Non-stop chearing. The Man-Woman hosting breathlessly emotes, “Usually I’m pretty happy with who I am but right now I want to be MATT DECOSTER.”

I’m auditioning to be a Daily Show correspondant on Tuesday