I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

More than a year ago, I posted a collection of (mostly terrible) covers of “Concrete and Clay,” which is very high on my list of favorite songs despite a.) having the taint of Wes Anderson association b.) being covered terribly over and over again

I’ve just learned about this Swedish cover and I’m not sure if it’s a strike against or a ringing endorsement:

Du för mig

A lot of people from the UCB Theatre are making these lately. Here’s one that I enjoyed a lot by Jim Santangeli—

This one from Brian Fountain (despite its wankerishness)

John Frusciante’s (despite it’s frattiness)

This whole series by Donald “30 Rock” Glover

( This account is somewhat bowdlerized to keep some level of privacy to the participants… more so in part 2 when huge amount of alcohol is consumed and dignity is less prized. If you want the uncensored version, you have to be my friend in real life or get me similarly alcoholically compromised in the future)

So, thanks to the magnanimousness of Sue Galloway and John Lutz, I was invited to watch last week’s SNL from the writer’s room and then tag along to the afterparty. Lutz is a writer for SNL (and also appears as “Lutz” on 30 Rock, where Sue also appears as “Girl Writer”) It’s the second time I’ve gone (the last was a couple years ago when I think maybe Drew Barrymore was hosting but I don’t remember much of the show itself… it was more about “Jesus, this is the Writer’s Room of SNL and I’m sitting in it“).

It was also Amy Poehler’s last scheduled show as a cast member, which is poignant since she was one of my first teachers at the UCB Theatre (and the only other SNL party I went to was in her first year when she let us in… eight years ago? Jesus!) When we got up to the room a couple other people from the Theatre were there and they told us that Amy had gone into labor before dress, was rushed to the hospital and they thought (though were not 100% sure) that she had delivered already. The baby’s name was Archibald, which was weighed mentally but not up for discussion because of the love for and fear of each of us feels for her. (She can shoot lasers from her eyes.)

At the aforementioned Barrymore show, the room was pretty empty. That time we watched the dress and the show and as soon as dress ended, all of the writers piled in manically and quickly rewrote massive portions of the show, dropping 25 minutes worth of material and then setting it all up again for a new audience. This time we were just there for the real show and the Writer’s Room was packed. I was kinda surprised Jon Hamm was such a draw, but then again the media elite of New York City would probably be his peeps. Not personally his peeps, but his fan-peeps, I mean. Media-elites loved The Division.

The Writer’s Room sits above the stage, like two stories up, with a window that looks out on the audience risers, stage right. I spotted one audience couple that came in vintage dress… adorable (and uncomfortable). I had seen Rich and his wife and a couple other show guys in the lobby on the way in (Bobby had gotten them all ringside seats, I think). You can watch through the window up until the show starts, then the curtain has to close, at you watch the show on a big screen over the long writer’s table. But, because of the proximity to the stage, you hear the sound from below you live and in front of you on the TV which creates a spacial distortion. Better than Acid.

Some script drafts from dress were on the table, as well as a running order and a lot of smelly half-eaten hummus platters. Gross, SNL Writers, show some pride in your workspace! Actually, a couple of the writers were looking extra classy in suits, themed for the occasion. Lutz among them… he had a very shiny tie that was purple and silver (as was my dress, so we were required to get married by sartorial law to the displeasure of his girlfriend Sue). His tie looked like it should have had expensive chocolates inside. I over heard a writer saying that they had done their writer’s pitch meeting Mad Men themed, everyone in suit and tie. Adorable, SNL Writers!

It was weird seeing Jon Hamm so animated in the monologue, but he went over really well. A writer said he was really surprised that a lot of things that went flat in dress (which also has a different full audience and is taped) were killing in the live show.

At this point there’s like maybe 50 people in the room watching. Writers walking in and out. Lots of girlfriends and wives. A whole contingent from 30 Rock. Andy Secunda. My agent. Then Coldplay comes on and the room CLEARS. They’ve all gone down to see Coldplay on the floor. I guess they weren’t there to see Don Draper. Who knew? Coldplay?

It’s during the second Coldplay set that Mad Men creator Matt Weiner and his wife walked in with Jason Sudeikis (my memory is clouded whether it was him, but he had a really nice suit, too) giving them a backstage tour. Immediately Jack McBrayer (who you may know as TV’s Kenneth from TV’s 30 Rock and is a massive Mad Men fan) and a couple other people leap up and start shaking his hand and getting into an animated conversation.

I feel kinda awkward and want to say hello too but since I’m not involved with either the Best Comedy or Best Drama Emmy-Winning program, I don’t want to bust in. I make a pleading face to Jack and he said “Oh, sorry. Let me introduce you.” He turns to Matt and says “This is my friend Dyna…”

And Matt flips out. “Dyna MOE!?”

Seriously, I have not been greeted with this much enthusiasm by a member of my actual family (but we’re Nordic and profoundly sad). He pushes Jack out of the way, grips me in a bear hug, kisses my head and talks a mile a minute about the drawings I’d been doing on Flickr.

I’m pretty un-huggy in general. And he’s a hard man to do a scene with. He keeps setting me up for lines, but then moves on to the next thing before I can answer. He wants to know my real name, which confused I give (should have said “January” since he bought that once). Then he keeps using it on me, which is more unsettling since only my mother and the IRS call me that. He jokes that I use a fake name ‘cause I’m a stripper and he used to be a stripper. Then he said his son loves the backgrounds and put one on the family computer. I say “Oh, the one with the velvet pants and the top hat?” “You heard about that, huh… no the one who plays Glen.” I didn’t have my bearings enough to ask if he put the Glen wallpaper on. He started talking about architecture and then grabs a pink post it, writes his email on it and tells me to send him my phone number so we can continue this. They move on with their tour and I sit back down. Much like being attacked by a leopard or run over by a speeding motorboat, it happens so fast it’s hard to register.

The rest of the show goes pretty well (and I already wrote about the Mad Men parody sketch a couple entries down). Now we’re going to the party. I end up following a bunch of people down to Bobby’s dressing room (‘cause I hadn’t been down there before)... it’s a lot like the Conan dressing rooms, actually, but it’s the same building so that’s no surprise.

The party is at a place down in Time Square, and I walk out with a bunch of people, who it occurs to me as we walk first into a pack of autograph seekers (many of whom appear to be terminally ill and in wheelchairs) and then into a pack of paparazzi are actually famous television stars (but I haven’t really let that sink in since they used to just be pals). Bobby gets detained by the autograph hounds; Rich and Jack hug hello just outside the door and the paparazzi go bananas.

Ashley and I, non famous television stars, wait a bit and Mitch Magee jumps a barrier. He was very anxious to be smuggled into the after-party. I told him I’d call once we were there (there is some security, you have to “come in” with someone) and evaluate it. He just showed up because he was bored. The four of us walk the 5 or 6 blocks to the party. Jack, being the charming devil he always was, passes a huge bus-shelter 30 Rock ad and said with surprise “Hey, that’s me!”

NEXT TIME …Part 2: The Party

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.

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:

Don’t buy these…

The fluted shape is attractive, I like the idea of “light texture” and I keep getting tricked into thinking they’ll be MORE delicious than regular Walker’s. Like a dollar-fifty more delicious because they are fucking $6 a box. And there’s only 12 cookies in the goddamn box.

Unlike regular Walker’s shortbread, which taste mainly of butter and are basically a socially-acceptable way of eating logs of pie crust, these have vanilla in them. Which somehow tastes very cheap and phoney… like an off-brand yellow sandwich cookie you’d get at a shady bodega for some weird amount of money like 87 cents or 53 cents.

Also gross – Stoneyfield Yogurt’s “Caramel Underground.” Half-filled, unpleasantly-colored barf-water cups. Couldn’t find a picture online. Use your imagination.

The UCB Theatre called me up and said, “Hey, why not tell people about our new video site” and I was all like “Nah, they can find it on their own.” Then they were like, “Don’t be a dick, Jesus. We’re just trying to get through the fucking day, already.” And I was like, “Well, shit, if you’re going to be all up in my jock about it, I’ll link to your goddamned website.”

Here’s what you get—all my no-good same-old videos, now in beautiful hi-res that looks better than YouTube. (Also, Monster in A Wheel Chair)

Remember this chestnut back from 2006?

Fatal Farm is back! And by that I mean, I finally took notice of something they’ve probably been doing for months and months! So, only my perspective of things makes them exists! Yee haw!

Lasagna Cat: Tributes to Jim Davis

Fatal Farm, as you recall, I last reported on for their bizarre/hilarious re-versions of TV opening credits(and there’s a couple new ones since last I posted). And fucked up interpretations of newspaper comics were twice reported here in the form of the awesome Mary Worth video series (tip of the hat to Matt DeCoster for pointing out originally). Finally, two great internet tastes that taste great together in… Lasagna Cat!

My art indirectly made it into the Chicago Tribune!

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/01/mad-men-comes-b.html

Mad Men, in my humble opinion, was the best show of 2007 and when I got a chance to design a Christmas card for cast member and former NY improviser Rich Sommer, I jumped at it.

click the pic to see it giant sized

I didn’t take any money for it because it was fun and I wanted to do it. I was also working at an ad agency at the time (September) and had a lot of downtime. It gave me cabin fever, totally, to sit at a desk and wait for work to come and I realized the day went a lot faster if I just took a lot of freelance work to stay occupied… and I took a lot of questionable design work that I would have steered clear of in normal life.

The trade off for Rich was he had to endure weekly Q&A emails about behind the scenes Mad Men gossip and insider track backstage plot secrets (he didn’t know any). And when iTunes totally got behind in updating their episodes, he got AMC on the horn and straightened that shit out (or, his boss did, really). Aaaaaaand… he sent me a DVD screener for Xmas and a copy of a shooting script (“The Wheel” aka the season finale) for me to put in my hope chest. And I did this with it:

(I hope this satisfies loyal reader Monique’s need for inanimate objects with sexy legs)

I really want to a space future video series. Maybe retro-future, like Barbarella, and use Thai restaurants as my shooting locations.

Thai restaurant interiors in NY look like spaceships.

I was thinking about going to the Writer’s Strike picket tomorrow at Chelsea Piers. I’m not a WGA member, but I’ve registered scripts with them and have gone to free movies during awards season as a “guest” of a member, so it may be time to give back my precious, precious, valuable unemployed time.

In other news, the Cakey production irritations chug on full steam ahead. Trying to schedule about four different shoots this month, each with a different set of people who need to be at them. I am in need of two locations—
1. A doctor’s office
2. A large emptyish “hall” room that could have a bake sale in it.

I may have to rent a rehearsal space for #2 which might be the second greatest expense of the shooting, aside from renting a dozen costumes for another episode. If anyone has resources or recommendations for either of these locations, I’d appreciate your help. Email me through the link on the upper left.
—
Channel 102 audiences, you finally did something right. All pretty good shows in the top 5 at last month’s screening, and esoteric/no-plot Mister Glasses took #2 (three votes shy of #1) despite the 90% absence of the cast of the show and it being the cold opener of the night. Cheers to you!

So, I wrote a post yesterday twice and both times my internet connection crashed and took the post with it. So I got frusterated and didn’t try a third time. I’ll retro-post it later, but it still counts as being written on Sunday.

Today is my first day of unintentional unemployment (as opposed to taking a day off) since I was laid off at the ad agency on Halloween. Well, they told me to leave on Friday and don’t come back. I was surprised but relieved since after 3 months I was getting really irritated and stir crazy. I also have mounting obligations with the new Cakey series, which will be on SuperDeluxe.com at the beginning of next year. We have one episode entirely shot, one episode 1/3 done, one episode written but not shot, and one episode as an outline.

Come to 102 tonight and I will answer more Cakeyrelated inquiries, but only if you vote for Mitch Magee’s new show Mister Glasses, which I appear in and was present at the first imaginings of this summer. And it was edited on my computer while I was at work, so I will claim producer credit. Also, for more Mitch Mageerealted news, that Andy Kaufman award thing I posted about? He’s a finalist. Nice job, readers.

I saw a documentary on Groucho Marx yesterday, and it must have been an old one since they interviewed Bill Cosby on the set of the Cosby show. Groucho was 40 years old when Coconuts was filmed (and he was the youngest of the “funny” Marx bros.) and it reminded me of a different American Experience show I saw on Lucille Ball that mentioned SHE was 40 when I Love Lucy premiered. Based on this pool of two examples, all from more than 50 years ago, I will unscientifically state that comedians get their breaks late in life. Bad science!

I am super psyched that The Secret Life of Machines are all up online on this site. What Connections is to history, Secret Life is to well, a different kind of history. Engineering history?

And there’s crappy limited/cut-out animation drawn by the presenter himself, who is an absolute twee dreamboat. I like that if he stumbles on a line they just keep going. And a lot of the male cartoon characters have female voices. Just ‘cause. Oh English edutainment programs, I love you!

Watch them all!

The Self Image Film (If Mirrors Could Talk)

For the very advanced student:
The ABCs of Sex Ed for Trainables

We got back from DC last night about 9:00; an utter crawl through most of New Jersey and a multi-hour stand-still through the tunnel. The trip should normally take 4-5 hours and it was closer to 7. We were so tired by the end that the best “bit” we could come up with was that Mitch was a guy who was completely unaware that he had pissed himself despite all the obvious signs.

We shot with the Stan guys in Arlington on Saturday night, starting pretty late and going until 2. It’s for a new show, not their 102 thing. I actually have no idea when or if it’ll be available to the public. I’ll post it when it is. We shot in a TV station that they had full run of, so it was pretty sweet—especially the sound stage with three cameras, lighting grid, switcher booth… we immediately started thinking what we’d shoot in there if we had access to it all. Jealous!

For part of the video we recreated Welcome to my Study on their stage and it looked amazing! Probably better than the original, cobbled together from stuff we found around the office. We even matched the amount of plants we had on the set, only theirs were plastic. The only think we didn’t have was a terrible painting on the wall, but we gained a really bizarre pattern of cascading colored lights on the backdrop.

I act in this video we made (as the “producer” of Welcome to My Study), and looking at the footage, I was cringing. We had to improvise some stuff and my gears were grinding. Between this and my lack of car-bits, I think already tenuous grasp on comedy has completely atrophied.

When we finally got back to the city, I ordered Thai food and read the Harry Potter book start to finish.
—-

Mitch has scooped me on this story. His has pictures.

In my ongoing effort to upload “Welcome to My Study” on every online service that exists, I created two SuperDeluxe accounts last night at 3 AM. The site is very slick and the writing is kind of cloying but as far as I know, no one ever goes there.

http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/people/nobodyssweetheart
This is newer videos (Glenn, Good Taste, Study) and I’ll add to it later (Hugh Bue)

http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/people/mr_ghost
This will only be Cakey! and My Wife, The Ghost… I’m not putting anything else on it.

We were in talks A YEAR AGO to have Cakey be one of the commissioned series for SuperDeluxe’s launch. It never happened despite our rep occassionally assuring us that “something’s coming” every 4-5 months, so I figure I might as well just put the old stuff up and get it seen. Even though no one ever goes to SuperDeluxe.

I suppose you could “friend” either of those accounts if you felt like it.

Study is becoming what I initially predicted – my Fargo, in which a retreat into weirdness somehow strikes a chord with audiences that my more mainstream (relatively) fare totally failed to impress.

Last night at the ROTFL ( “Gong Show for the Internet”), Study was shown and tickled the applause-o-meter enough to allow for Channel 102 to eventually dominate the contest (with other selections Fun Squad and Space Guidos). Weirdly enough, his competition was the previously blogged Comics Curmudgeon (who should have show the Mary Worth film series and flattened Study—I know where my bread is buttered)

Tony Carnevale, representing Channel 102, reports “In round 1, “Welcome to My Study” edged out a Powerpoint presentation on penis-enlargement spam by the Comics Curmudgeon, who had come all the way from Washington, DC. (The applause levels were extremely close, though, and cohost Reggie Watts had to select the winner. And after he did, it seemed like the hardcore Curmudgeon fans wanted to tear me limb from limb.)”

Additionally, Comedy Central’s Insider (staffed by friends-of-102) plugged Study the other day.

I decided I want a cool robot costume. I made one more than ten years ago, and I think I could probably do a better job now. I don’t specifically have a show or sketch or anything to use it in, though I’ve discussed it with Silvija.

When I suggested doing a video where we played robots, she said “Isn’t that kind of hack?” I disagreed. I think the hackiness of robots in comedy has gone full cycle (peaking in 2000-1) and now it’s more Zombie that are hack. (Despite my argument, I admit that robots still might be slightly hack so the material has to be extra good… and the costume has to be extra good.) On the pro side, Silvija noted that we both kind of talk like robots naturally, so we won’t have to modify our voices.

I will probably do a head in paper-mache using some kind of helmet as a base… maybe a cheap plastic mask stapled to the front to give it structure. If I could get a very cheap used bike helmet I’d use that. I did a short peruse of Halloween Adventure, but they didn’t have any plain plastic “helmets” to use. The ones they had were kid-sized—too small! I’m probably have to get a bodysuit to wear under it… which is just the slippery slope excuse I need to get into the confusing/claustrophobic “zentai” fetish!

So, I don’t want to do the tinfoil box with dryer vent arms—that really has been done to death—or anything really boxy. I checked the internet to see if there were any robot tutorials, but I haven’t found anything that fits the kind of robot suit I want to make which is on the more art-deco tip. Like somewhere between the “False Maria” from Metropolis and the Will Smith I Robot robots (I didn’t see this movie).

Here’s what I found online:

• The unholy union of “furry” and “robot” which I posted in my blog years ago.

• CloroxBot step-by-step which also uses stilts (people think robots are tall), but the real prize on the site is this insane cardboard Boba Fett helmet.

• A French-Canadian who makes Transformer costumes (in cardboard, no less) that actually tranform….
  ... but of course the Japanese still do it better

At last night’s Channel 102 screening, a show I co-created again failed to place. For the third consecutive time. It’s enough to lose faith in the system.

Yeah, I get your message—Mitch and I have decided to stop being friends since everything we make is a terrible failure! We hate each other now! See what you did, audience! Now I’ll have to start making shows that aren’t weird, inaccessible, full of retarded child molestors or pretentious... where’s the fun in that?

See you in August, Channel 102… with something else you won’t vote for! Hooray!

P.S. – For fans of Study (people of quality and taste)—here’s an outtake: crabs.mov

It’s hot as hell in my room, though rather pleasant when I went outside. I’d imagine my computer is putting out most of the heat.

I’m editing two different pilots right now. Editing them myself, totally, for the first time since film school so I’m trying to remember how to do this crazy thing.

The first pilot we shot on Wednesday at Mitch’s studio. It’s called Welcome to My Study and here’s a salacious still to get your heart racing for the next 102, which we plan to submit it for.

I’ll say this for the show… it’s extremely odd. It has a great theme song that Mitch wrote and Joe McGinty arranged/recorded for us. The set built in the studio looks amazing. Mitch couldn’t be creepier in the role. Look forward to it not being voted back at this month’s Channel 102… if indeed it even is shown.

The other pilot, tentatively titled Hugh Bue until I come up with something more documentarian, sounding is going to have a lot more shooting dates in its future. The concept is a recluse sci-fi author comes out of retirement to publish his first new novel in 15 years. We shot the publisher’s office scene last weekend. The show is almost completely improvised which is going to make it a double black diamond “difficult” cutting job.

Here’s Anthony Atamanuik doing what he does in this clip of raw footage (specially filtered through YouTube’s propriatary “make everything look like shit” compression:

So, my 3-day weekend will be spend tanning in front of Final Cut.