Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Get MORTIFIED- TONIGHT!


MORTIFIED NYC!




WHEN: Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
TIME: 7:30 PM
WHERE: Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction
3 Ave A @ 4th Street

TICKETS: $10 in advance, $12 at the door

Pre-sale tickets available at TicketWeb


Mortified stars everyday adults sharing aloud their most
embarrassing, pathetic and private teenage diary entries, poems, love letters, lyrics and locker notes... in front of total strangers.

www.getmortified.com


As heard on NPR's "This AmericanLife," Mortified
is the longest running show of its kind, with monthly events in LA, NYC, San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago. An online version (for the stage shy) called Woe & Tell exists at the official Mortified site: www.getmortified.com. Equal parts comedic, cathartic and voyeuristic, Mortified is truly a stage show like none other.

WHO LIKE-LIKES MORTIFIED: • "See it!" (Jane Magazine) • "A comic
cringe fest!" (Backstage West) • "Some of the juiciest real lifetragedies." (TimeOut NY) • "Self-deprecation taken to a whole new level!" (New York Press) • "Never laughed so hard!"(Los Angeles Confidential) • "Heart breakingly hilarious tales of personal woe & social catastrophe!" (Flavorpill) • As heard & seen on NPR's "This American Life"


CO-PRODUCED in NYC BY: Brandy Barber

Bite Me.


Taken by Eliza Farios-Santos.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I HEART Matt McCarthy!



From the May 17th show of McCarthyism, all courtesy of the lovely Anya Garrett.

Check this show out, there's only one more left and you'll be sorry if you don't. I advise showig up drunk and rowdy after saying you'd have "just a sip" of white wine at an alfresco dinner with your writing partner (which translates to one entire bottle) then referring the the complimentary chardonnay you're offered at the show's venue as "goose piss". That's how I do.

Later you might want to berate your host, demand that he remove his pants and display his testicles, start an audience chant of "PANTS OFF", berate audience for not chanting to your liking, deny rumours about your various affected accents, try to pull off your host's pants with the help of your writing partner, and then say "Get your ass up there to the tip rail and show us what you got."

Ewww.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Sometimes, I Think I Want To Get Married.

I may seem to you to be a tough broad. You're right. But sometimes, I think about meeting someone who turns out to be my soulmate, and who completes me in a way no one has before. Someone who, with the act of being in love with me, makes everything- no matter how stressful, upsetting or terrible- OK. Someone for whom the entire courtship is simple- no questions, deception, or dramatics. Sigh.
















And then I read this article and I think, "My cat has paws and therefore, cannot hold a gun. Keepin' It Single in 2007. Word."

I Am Over Mongoloids.


My decree is thusforth and hencelike:

I am not amused, impressed or in any way entertained by the constant use of Bigfoot/Sasquatch*/primitive humanoids in advertising or in entertainment. It's cringe-worthy. I do not care about the fucking Geico ads or about the ensuing sitcom. And while I understand that this seems to be some sort of cottage industry for those actors in the 6' and up range who enjoy stuffing themselves into furred-up jumpsuits, or those possesed of a strong forehead for which latex prosthetics are an easy attachment, I will not be swayed.

Knock it the fuck off. Jeez.

*one exception is John C. Reilly in the Tencious D HBO series. OK, and MAYBE Chaka from Land of the Lost. But that is IT.

How I Spent My Saturday Night.

First Night: Ricky Gervais, Madison Square Garden, New York

Near-the-knuckle Gervais pushes US boundaries

By Julian Hall

Published: 21 May 2007

Outside New York's Madison Square Garden Theatre, ticket touts were having difficulties pronouncing Ricky Gervais's name. "Want tickets for Ricky Gerva?" they inquired, hesitantly. Inside, however, most people knew exactly who they had come to see and they hailed Ricky Gervais's live debut in the US accordingly.

The gig was given added impact by the presence of David Bowie in his role as curator of New York's High Line Festival, of which this performance was a part. Rather than merely introduce Gervais, Bowie supplied a comic turn by reprising the song he sang in Extras, the show that enhanced Gervais' US-appeal when it aired on HBO.

The response of the audience, (an audience that included Billy Connolly as well as a number of American comics), was justified as the 45-year-old comedian breezed through a show that was cannily put together using the best bits of his previous three stand-up outings: Animals, Extras and Fame. From the latter he took a number of blunt observations about fat people; for example that "obesity is not a disease" and that the problem for fat people is that "everything tastes good except salad", before noting: "You've got some proper fat people over here!"

Though he didn't repackage his previous output to cater for an American audience, some of Gervais's material took on an added frisson over here, such as his assertion that the Vietnam War was one of his favourite wars because it had the "best soundtrack".

Elsewhere he went near the knuckles of the audience with some graphic material, including his failsafe routine from Politics about a Terrence Higgins Trust leaflet issued at the height of the Aids scare which advises on all manner of bizarre ways to have safe gay sex. "That was warped man" one Italian-American said after the show, "I never knew he was like that."

Now that Gervais considers being in New York as "almost like coming home", there will no doubt be further opportunities for the city, and eventually elsewhere in the US, to acclimatise to his lurid wit. Going straight to the upper echelons of live venues for a debut could be seen as something of a risk if things had fallen flat, but the choice of material sent people home happy and their impression of him, be that from Extras or from The Office, seemed positively reinforced.

In the UK, there is a feeling that Gervais's ubiquity is finally provoking something approaching a backlash - although if this is so, it's not stopping him playing potential record-breaking venues such as the MEN Arena in Manchester. Whatever the strength of the argument that Gervais is suffering from over-exposure, a new front is clearly wide open in the US where he has already been welcomed with open arms by his idols, including Matt Groening of The Simpsons and the comic actor Christopher Guest.

It seems only logical given both the veneration he has given to these and other US comedians, such as Larry David and Garry Shandling, and the scepticism he has shown towards British comedy output, that Gervais would develop his special relationship with the US.

--excerpted from The Independent.


This article is odd, in that it's meant to be a review but seems to spend a lot of time putting forth opinions- even the quote from the "Italian-American" who attended the show seems...kind of stagey? Chosen because it's catty? I can't quite put my finger on what it is, there's just something that unsettled me about the tone to some degree.

Anyway it was an amazing show and, while I didn't get to talk to Ricky (as if asking someone to sign your book of scripts and then blathering how much you admire him is to be considered "talking") just being in the same place at the same time was simply awe-inspiring. Here's to having idols.

Bro'in Out!


I just sat down and watched back to back episodes and there was a lot of crying on my part. Then, my friend Marianne Ways sent me an email about a monthly show she produces...check out who's on the line up! Come on down!

Bro'in Out with Leo Allen, Tony Camin and bartender Jawnee Conroy
Monday, May 21, 8 p.m.
$5

With special guests:
Samm Levine (Freaks & Geeks, Undeclared)!!! <---do you see all of these exclamation points? That's how excited I am!

Peter Gwinn (Cobert Report)
Ann Carr (Comedy Central Motherload's Honesty, Giant Tuesday Night)
Musical Guest Teddy Goldstein ( http://www.teddygoldstein.com/)

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Matt Sears & I Went Drinking Saturday Night...

Sears Pulls A Hasslehoff


...and looky here what happened. I love you, Matt Sears.

The Whole Of Who I Am.



This commercial makes me laugh like a loon. I love the Rather Good boys.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Get Fresh At The Weekend, Showin' Out.


The above is a lyric from a song by a British girl duo named Mel & Kim from when I was in junior high. As Porter pointed out to me tonight, "Maybe you just have horrible taste in music."

Maybe you'll judge my comedy to be better. Maybe not. Come see for yourself.

MCCARTHYISM!
Tuesday, May 15th @ 10 PM
$5 smackeroos
Rififi, 11th St @ 1st Ave

Hosted by the unstoppable Matt McCarthy

and featuring

Dan Allen
God's Pottery

and the chimp-like mincings of Brandy & Sara.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

I feel a lot like this waggish gentleman.

Feel free to read this article on the famous conservation icon, Lonesome George. It is charming, although it made me feel a bit maudlin. Maybe because I am a bachelor.

I wonder if this gigantic solitary tortoise is me, to some degree. HIs story makes me wonder if more and more, I become detached from companionate love as I get older. Or, as the lack of it presenting itself becomes more apparent, maybe I just stop caring enough to pursue it? Who can say. I do know this: I do not want to be rubbed with sexual secretions in order to induce an erection. That, I do know.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Come See Me In Ruined Music This Tuesday May 8th, 2007!


This show is going to be so much fun. It's the One Year Anniversary of RUINED MUSIC! It's a fantastic idea and a show I am very proud ot be part of. Please come see me read an essay about a ruined song from my past (to be unveiled then), and check out the stories from others and great live music, too!

AND HERE'S THE KICKER: If you come early, there's bar-b-que on the rooftop of the Delancey. Normally, it's $5 to get a plate to fill up as high as you can. But if you're there at 7:30 it's only $2. AND I just saw that there's FREE PBR from 7:30 PM and 8:30 PM. SO now you really must come. Because for a grand total of $8 admission and $2 for a plate, you can pig out and pound PBR then see great bands and smartassery. And there's dancing later!

Make it happen, people. MAKE. IT. HAPPEN.