I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

I did more portraits of friends in July and August and forgot to put them here. Click the images to see them bigger and read who they are.

I have finally updated my website (there’s actually more on it than this blog)—adding to the about me page and the video page.

It’s actually just archivey stuff rather than making anything new—I put up embedded links to every video I’ve done (except for Captain Conspiracy and We Love Cigars) and brought back links to the portrait projects. But… there’s new graphics. Like this—

Second in a series

I’ve covered all of April. Now I have to wait and hangout with someone else before I can do another one.

I desperately want the genre of “adventure games” to have a comeback. Even though I knew it was going to be disappointing, I downloaded and PAID MONEY for this, mostly symbolically so someone will see that it made money and say “Let’s bring back adventure games.”

I finished it in less than two hours. And a lot of the backgrounds got messed up and were all artifacty.

I think I should be more discriminating and campaign for a return to good adventure games.

It’s Toy Fair week here in Manhattan and here’s my rallying cry for someone to pick up the mantle of producting Mad Men plastic crap. It’s a no-brainer, really, the hipster designers touting the show the loudest are the ones most likely to have 10 billion Kid Robot toys in their cubicles.

Minifigs, I believe, are technically the little people from Lego, but there’s a whole genre of blocky tiny toys (like Kubricks, Minimates, etc. ) many with a huge customizing communities. I don’t have the means or the wherewithal to make these a physical reality so I’m throwing it to those with the can-do know-how.

• I’d also add that if these were blind-boxed, the ultra-rare “mystery figure” would be Dale (not pictured).

I want to draw attention to some links acronymically-branded commentators DW and QI left some posts ago .

The first is a ridiculous archive of the BBC radio panel show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue,” which I am ashamed to admit I had never heard of. It was a spin off of the ‘70s BBC comedy radio show “I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again,” which I had heard of, merely because it’s always mentioned in formative histories of Monty Python as John Cleese was a writer/performer. The majority of the panelists were on another seminal UK comedy group—The Goodies (that never got popular in the US and of whom I’ve only seen in one sketch on some Secret Policeman’s Ball benefit)—that Wikipedia compares either to The Monkees or Stella… take your pick.

If any improv/comedy friends actually are still reading this blog you can understand the impulse that created “I Haven’t Clue” in 1974… they thought, “Why are we putting so much work into actually writing this dumb radio show for so little reward… let’s just wing it without scripts”. And so they did. And it ran continuously up to last year (and is coming back in the near future; the “chairman” or host recently died and bummed everyone out.)

A weird mix of shortform-style improv games (only played the pun-abusing British casual manner as opposed to the manic eager-to-please shit US ComedySportz style), meta radio nonsense bits, and singing.

I’ve stuck mostly to the last 10 years, enjoying a lot of guest stars I recognize from QI. As I’m getting into the ‘90s, there’s more names I remember fondly from the UK Whose Line Is It Anyway (the UK show was a revelation when it appeared on Comedy Central; the USA one is a fetid turd in a wineglass full of AIDS blood).

John Cleese is in some of the very earliest ones from the ‘70s. Unless you’re mad for Cleese, I’d stick to the ‘00s with great appearances from Rob Brydon (who was the only funny thing in Tristram Shandy), Stephen Fry, Jeremy Hardy (QI), Bill Bailey (one line in Hot Fuzz), etc.

It’s way too British in parts for me to follow; I get about 50% of it. And the older the episodes get, the more incomprehensible the reference, mostly political figures (which Wikipedia helps with). The other odd British-US disconnect is when they sing popular songs (to the tunes of other popular songs) which makes me believe: a.) all comedians in England are required to know a massive amount of old-timey music hall novelty numbers b.) the “hits” that international stars like Elvis or Tom Jones are known for are completely different than they’re know for over here c.) Their Top-40 is totally Bizarro-inverse from ours of the same era; “Teenage Dirtbag” was a mega hit in England it seems.

MP3s of I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue

Commenter QI gets fewer points—another fundamental difference in US-UK culture is that they don’t seem to care who wins on these “game shows” and points are thrown about like confetti. You lose an Empire and all of a sudden you stop caring about the most important thing – FUCKIN’ WINNING! USA USA USA!—for recommending a BBC radio show I’ve already heard (some wag posted them on YouTube with a still picture as the visual): David Mitchell’s The Unbelievable Truth.

MP3s of The Unbelievable Truth (Ep 1-6 only)

Get your head out of the oven. Matt DeCoster is doing a trapeze show.

For people who don’t know, Matt DeCoster is the ridiculously hard-boiled actor/comedian seen here—

—who with I was on Monkeydick and I directed his sketch show with Will Hines, flyer below

So, aside from being an improv comedian and a trial lawyer, he also is a trapeze artist. Yes, I know.

Alt-trapeze shows tend to be the same crowd as alt-burlesque scene—Busty Bedford Ave girls with tattoos and Bettie-Page-bangs and a lot of drag queens. Then Matt DeCoster comes out (with what Rob Huebel calls a “gay porn body”) in a spangly unitard and you’re waiting for him to start “cleaning up the bar” in the style of an 80s JCVD action-adventure. But instead he does the most physically grueling trapeze act you’ve ever seen.

Wednesday, December 17. 8 PM

Matt sez: “These shows tend to get crowded and to start late. I believe you can make a reservation at TheZipperFactory.com.”

If you’re not convinced, watch this clip of Matt nearly killing a guy (UCB Manager Alex Sidtis) at the UCB Theatre Fight Club boxing match—Weapons of Matt DeCoster

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In everyone’s hooplaing and gazooksing about over this Obama fellow, people overlooked the passing of someone very special. A man from another age who was not equipped for our time. A small man with giant glasses and a passion for talking in a weird stiff manner which supposedly was modeled after Jackson Pollock.

Mister Glasses has died.

Mitchell Magee, my friend and sometimes-collaborator (although not on Mister Glasses despite what people think) did not produce a new episode for this month’s Channel 101 screening and, according to the rules, forfeited his slot on the ballot and was immediately canceled.

Mitch didn’t write or shoot anything this month—the stress of the huge production, scheduling, frequent cast changes, expense of making a show for free while living on a limited budget chips away at one’s enthusiasm pretty quickly. He had been talking about ending the show for months, but waiting until he finished the episodes focusing on each member of Mister Glasses’ entourage and after the NY TV Festival in October. By anyone’s standards (except the absurd Defenders of Stan’s), Mister Glasses had a terrifically long run even if you discount the two Welcome to my Study specials that I worked on (but you shouldn’t because Study is awesome and Mitch wrote those, too).

And now… I will present an interview with Mitch about Mister Glasses.

Dyna: What is the origin of Mister Glasses? It’s an unusual idea for a web series, for sure, which tends to be more on the quick and obvious tip.

Mitch: Well, as you know, Dyna, you were pretty intimately involved with the conception of the idea. The two of us were walking around Manhattan and I looked up at a building (it may have been the Urban Glass House) and I said, look at that—that was made by…you, know…Mister Glasses.” I was thinking of the architect, Philip Johnson, but I couldn’t remember his name. You immediately said, “you should do a show called “Mister Glasses.”

So, Mitch wrote about Seattle so I have to write up my party adventures.

Rich sent an email saying he was gonna be in town to undisclosed recipients and we should meet him at this bar, Grassroots, which is right by my house. Like, two blocks away. I could roll there if I had to.

I already had tickets that night to see a terrible play with Silvija. Silvija gets free tickets to Broadway shows because of her job at Playbill and she is generous enough to share. I usually ask that we only see terrible things, but actually, most of what we’ve seen together has been pretty good… including two different shows that went on to win Tonys in subsequent years (“In The Heights” and “Spring Awakening”). We also saw “High Fidelity the Musical” which was pretty… not terrible, but definitely seemed dated within weeks of opening and I can see a high school in 2020 putting it on as a hoary 00s nostalgia show. I digress. The show we went to see we knew was going to be bad—the NY Times called it “A walking corpse of a comedy”—and we were all but daring each other to admit that we didn’t want to see it. But we did, and we didn’t leave at the intermission, and made it all the way to the uncomfortable, embarrassed curtain call. Taa daa!

So, now I had to get back down to my neighborhood and have a drink—which could have been disastrous, embarrassed and uncomfortable as well—with Rich and his other friends I didn’t know. He had been at the bar for almost three hours when I got there and was filled with liquid cheer. We talked about old comedy war stories, including the tale of Real Real World at the Mall of America which he had some perspective on as a native Minneapolian (term?) and the shady dude who ran the whole “festival.” Charlie Sanders was there and said that he was in the audience for that terrible show where we were booed off the stage since he was performing with his local group at the same event.

Anyway, Rich, after complaining about being cut from his second and third appearances on the Office, said “Oh, yeah the guys are coming.” It turned out he was flown out and put up by Bloomingdales (at the W, no less) to sign autographs with the rest of the Mad Men cast. It seemed very strange and was completely unpromoted as far as I had observed.

First “Peggy” came, right from her show on Broadway (“Speed the Plow”) in the theater next door to the terrible play I had just seen. She was dressed smartly in a crested blazer/straw hat combo and looked very Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I handed her a red wine across the table and said ‘I’ll blog about this,” to which she reacted not at all. Burn! I am uninteresting!

There also were two AMC people—Sarah and Vlad—at the bar, one of whom was very enthusiastic about my dumb drawings, which was nice, since I would assume there would be lots of cease and desists and cold-shoulders. But she was very pro-drawings.

Jawnee Conroy was there and confused many of Rich’s friends with his sincere believe that dinosaurs live in the center of the earth. Charlie Sanders and I discussed our favorite bad/amazing movies and gave each other homework to watch and discuss at a later date.

“Paul” and “Pete” came together a bit later and played some darts. We were all pretty in the bag at this point. “Pete” shared with me a number of things that irritated him at length… he has many pet peeves. I was surprised to discover we are the same age. I irritated many gathered with my many points of praise for Law and Order: CI, the upshot of which is now having to tell people I met famous actors from a TV show I enjoy and rather than ask them interesting questions about their fascinating lives, I wasted their time by pointing out the finer points of the 2005 episode “Collective” about the nerd-killing black widow (also featuring former UCB performer Bret Christensen plays an Anne-Rice-vampire nerd sex-in-coffins cult member). “Paul” appears in a different {and lesser} 2005 episode “Prisoner” but that’s neither here nor there. He took off for a while and Rich said he was trying to pick up NYU girls smoking outside.

Some other shit happened. I lost my wallet but didn’t realize it. Most everyone left. I tried to take the remaining people to Crif Dogs, but since it was a Wednesday and 3 AM, it was closed. I tried Sidewalk and a pizza place, but they were closed too, so I proved to be a terrible drunken guide and went home, leaving Rich and his friends to their own devices.

On Friday, a couple days later, Anthony Atamanuik texted me to say “the busty redhead from your show is at Roo Roo.” For those who don’t know Stony, that’s classy for him. Long story short, “Joan” is dating the brother of Stony’s girlfriend and he’s actually known her in that quasi-familial bond for years. She also was in town on the Bloomingdale’s junket but she skipped the bar the other night (as did “Ken” and “Sal” who I think were with her at a Jazz club or something to that effect… they’re all the “old marrieds” of the crew as Rich had left wifey and baby back in LA and living the swinging swingle life that night).

“Joan” was neither 9 feet tall nor floating through the halls of McManus like battleship despite what you have seen. Her hair is really red. No, I did not ask if she wears a fake ass in the show and that question is bizarre and says more about you than her, really. Jesus. Why are we friends? She is very normal and of normal height and was wearing normal people clothes and… gasp… WASN’T A DICK! (Not that you should assume anyone is going to be a dick but the level to which she was the opposite of a dick surprised me.)

She actually was super nice and super excited about my drawings, which was very sweet. She was also exhausted as she had been doing photoshoots and fittings nonstop the whole week she was there (as well as hanging out with boyfriend’s extended family). She was genuinely thrilled that all these fashion people were giving her clothes and had a bunch more meetings the next day. She told me some funny backstage shit which put some stuff in perspective (but is not for the internet). She talked about some other shows she had worked on. And just was exactly what you’d want in meeting a person from TV. Five thumbs up.

Thanks to the magnanimousness of our friends on the writers’ staff (drawings for both of you), I’m going to the Jon Hamm-hosted SNL on Saturday and the after-party, which I believe a lot of the Sterling-Cooper crew is coming out for. Heightened terrifying drunken antics to follow… and be drawn. I suppose! That! Hooray!

(I feel like an awful person for having written this. Am I betraying a trust? Is this indulgent twaddle of the likes that fell Rome? Are you happy, Mitch?)

I just thought of an awesome Halloween costume.

Paula Poundstone. A sexy Paula Poundstone.

Maybe I can get a group together and we can go as the roster of the 1989 season of HBO One Night Stand. C’mon guys… who wants to be Larry Miller?

I started making a longer video project… a “pilot” or short film or whatever. My goal is to finish shooting my by birthday this month and get it to the NY TV Festival.

Paul Rondeau is shooting it. Cast includes Jim Santangeli, Sue Galloway, Matt DeCoster, Rob Lathan, and Mitch Magee. And me.

Here is a completely irrelevant clip of Mitch ad-libbing. This will not be in the final video.

Despite the fact it may forward the curse, I watched the rest of Roadhouse this weekend, then followed it with The Great Moment (out-of-character Sturges heroic dentist biopic) and Real Life (showcasing Albert Brook’s horrifying shoulder fur)

My parents were in town, briefly, and I went to the Met (museum, not opera) with them. They’ve renovated the 19th/18th Century painting area (I can’t remember what the old gallery looked like… I probably could reconstruct the layout of the National Gallery in DC from memory, though). The three temporary shows were a parade of snooze and yuck though… Courbet,Poussin, and Jasper Johns: Gray.

However, on Sunday, I have found a new obsession. I’ve been a cranky snob about the last couple years about the revival schedules put up at Film Forum. They flipflop from being paint-dryingly dull retrospectives of the third-best forgotten masters of Japanese drawing room dramas where 2/3 of the movie is people emotionlessly staring at each other or, the UA screening coming up, so broad and mainstream that every movie on the ticket is available at your local blockbuster. Although, I really do applaud Film Forum’s ability to work my favorite movie “One, Two, Three” into EVERY series. Hooray!

Anyway, due to a listing in the New York Times (that I was only reading because my parents had a copy in their hotel room), I saw the New-York Historical Society (I don’t know why it’s hyphenated) was showing a double feature of silents. Turns out this group—Silent Clowns—has been showing extremely rare silents for the last 10 years. I finally found a film series nerdy/unpretenious enough to meet my specific film needs.

They seem to have a show once a month from fall through spring—there’s only two showings left this month. Next month is some guy with a mustache but the next one after that is Laurel & Hardy (meh) shorts AND a female slapstick duo and I’m intrigued. One is tall and one is short and in the promo picture they seemed to be tied together at the waist with a guilt look on their faces—that says “comedy” to me!

Oh, so many reasons to buy giant chess pieces!

Like, pretending you’re in an episode of the Avengers (or an Avengers-themed XTC video).

Even better—Plastic Chess Hats, particularly with the WARNING: ...these products may cause neck injury in the natural course of child play. Constant adult supervision is required. “So, how DID your son end up a quadrapalegic.”

A friend comments that the pawn hat looks like “a condom full of whale jizz”

I think it’s strange that the price of the chess hats bought individually scales upwards with the piece’s status in the game. I mean, the hats are all made of the same stuff… why is a queen hat $50 and a pawn $13?

(Site found by thebighonkin.com; they used a black knight for “Dark Horse” in Defenders of Stan #12)

First, watch the 3rd Mister Glasses, I edited the middle part.

Second item, I want to make a new show. I like making shows, but I’ve had a two-ton, cake-frosted albatross around my neck for the last year. I have a bunch of semi-developed ideas (many of these are really old), but I can’t tell if any of them have merit.

The more the trend towards really short one-off sketches continues on the internet, the more I want to make complicated, multi-scene, involved shows. I don’t care what they end up on, though I like seeing them live with an audience. These shows could be for any venue online or off.

Here are the top candidates, to keep a record of them for my sake as well as the handful of peeping peteys who read this blog (both of you).

Sui-slider
Main character is a overly-sensitive Poetry grad student who after a series of disheartening encounters with his advising professor, therapist, and ex-girlfriend; commits suicide. What he soon realizes that rather than find a tidy end to his put-upon life, he has become a sui-slider cursed to jump between alternate realities with each attempt to end it all.

Pro:

Bowling Noir
The one hack move that pisses me off more than anything is badly done Noir parodies… sketches, videos, whatever. It’s always the same stock shit off a detective in his office and the dame comes in, voice over…zzzzz. The detective in his office shit is like less than 5% of the genre, and it’s 99% of the parody. I’d do a show that’s the rest of the genre, poor suckers getting pulled into schemes they don’t know how to get out of, insurance fraud, lots of night driving.

And the main character is the world’s greatest bowler, continually suckered into doing illegal things, played by Matt DeCoster

Pro:

I found myself thinking about scientists who spend their lives teaching animals to talk, like Koko the Gorilla and the recently deceased Alex the Parrot. A lot of skeptics say the supposed teaching and logic on display that the researchers say is the breakthrough, is operant conditioning… rehearsed performances (usual name-check-dismissed with an eyeroll to “Hans the Wonder Horse“)

I found, through cross-references in Wikipedia, a current parrot subject who’s being taught through “conversational” methods. And just to throw some sand under the wheels of scientific legitimacy, Nkisi can not only speak and understand English… he’s psychic too.

Nkisi Speaks
I could listen to this for hours. Nkisi sounds like a teenaged girl from LaJolla.

It cheapens the whole having-an-astral-body-named-in-your-honor for the other honorees.

Why am I wasting my time making internet videos, when this guy already completely mastered the form?