Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Underground!

It's been confirmed. I’m going to be trying out new stuff this Friday at the Underground Lounge. This place is great if you’re in the neighborhood or if you want to experience the truly intimate comedy show. By intimate I mean that the comics usually sit in your lap while doing their set, and occasionally drink your beers. Come down (or up even) and bring some mace!

When: Friday, July 28th, 10pm

Where: Underground Lounge, 955 West End Avenue @ 107th St./Broadway

What: funny stuff

How: Just come

How much: Cover charge is $8 with a 2 drink minimum.

Gotham is Gorges!

Had a good set last night. I enjoyed the mix of younger comics, especially the young hot ladies they bring with them who sit in the front row and giggle and make their breasts bounce. Actually, I hate them, the distracting bitches. If it wasn't for their alluring sex appeal, I'd be a much better comic.

Down with Breasts!

I may be doing a show at the Underground this weekend if I can scare up some folks. Who's down for a night hanging in the UWS?

Monday, July 24, 2006

What am I doing?

What do sci-fi and divorce have in common?

If you answered absolutely nothing (Huh! Good god y'all!), you'd be right. Or to be completely accurate, you'd have been right before you read this post.

On a whim, this past week I entered the Screenwriter's Challenge brought to you by the same folks that run the Midnight Movie madness I mentioned last November. The contest is similar to those, except instead of making a whole movie, you have one week to write a short screenplay. As I am a self-confessed writer, this contests appeals to me because I don't have to do any of that bloody producing work. I can just concentrate on writing the best thing that I can.

The trick of course is to write something that fits the genre and subject given to you before the deadline. And that's right, you've guessed it, the combo I've drawn is sci-fi and divorce. Two ideas which rarely if ever go together.

I've got a few ideas rambling around my brain. They are currently in the marinating phase. I don't know if any of them will taste any good but they need to be served by Saturday at midnight.

And no, I don't plan on putting that awful metaphor into the script.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Greg performing at Gotham, Tuesday, 7.25.06

Hi there party people,

Another installment of the comedy stylings of yours truly will grace the boards of Gotham one week from today. It’s safe to say that the last time I was on stage there was one of the best shows I ever had. Ten minutes of pure chewing satisfaction. I hope to recreate that moment now everytime I have a microphone in my hand, which was embarassing when I last did karaoke. Apparently, they want you to sing songs at those places, not tell jokes about D&D and your wife’s vagina.

Oh well, come on down to Gotham next week and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I need ten lovely people there or I can’t go, on so please let me know that you are coming to support live comedy.

  • When: Tuesday, July 25th, 8:00pm
  • Where: The NEW Gotham Comedy Club, 208 W. 23rd Street, bet. 7th and 8th
  • What: funny stuff
  • How: Call 212.367.9000 and make a reservation
  • How much: Cover charge is $12 with a 2 drink minimum.

Last time I was there, this crazy guy named Lewis Black showed up and did a few minutes. He’s really going somewhere, I’m sure you’ll see him on TV someday. If only he wasn’t so angry.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Strangely Inspired

I'm not sure why, but I usually get inspired while driving over the Queensboro Bridge.

It really doesn't make sense. It's probably the ugliest bridge in New York, on the lower roadway there is a limited view of the skyline and right now construction workers have placed a yellowed tarp over part of the bridge which looks like you're driving through a papery wasp's nest. I hate wasps, ever since I was a kid and was stung three times in 5 seconds by a sharp barbed flying menace.

But as I drive my Volvo over the disgusting span of the Queensboro (trying not to remember that scene from Escape from NY), I have a few moments alone to concentrate. It's different than laying in bed or walking down the street. Maybe it's the inebriation of a few stolen puffs, but I start dreaming. Driving forward from Queens to Manhattan is moving forward, from the low ghettoes to the flying skyscrapers. It's not unlike taking my ideas for movies, books or plays and pushing them forward from the dregs of my plotting braing into the stark dare-to-be-great reality.

That's where this post came from. Last night, while my Volvo squeeked over the bridge, I thought of listing everything I had ideas for and using it as a springboard to actually
accomplishing one or more of them. Something's been bothering me lately. I fear that I have too many ideas. Sounds stupid, I know, but I fear that I have too many projects I want to complete and that it paralyzes me into accomplishing nothing. Just look at the nouns I use to describe myself. I am truthfully a playwright, a screenwriter, a stand-up comic, a journalist, an author and a producer. My projects sometimes intersect my identities, I want to write a short film and probably produce it myself. Or I have this idea for a documentary about stand-up comedy. But I feel spread thin. I hope this list will focus my energies.

  • Creation Play. This is where a lot of effort has gone lately. I have been editing and rewriting this play for over four years and I think it's ready for at least a workshop type production. I've thought to book an engagement at the Red Room but haven't had the balls to actually do it. That will change. I will have balls!
  • Complete Works. This is a sci-fi play set in New York after a nuclear apocalypse. It's Mad Max meets Shakespeare in Love. I've written the 1st act, which will probably be changed. Right now there are too many characters and I need to streamline the plot. This needs to be shaped up for a reading, maybe I can set a date for that soon.
  • Work. MOvie about my time at Ivoryton and the Beach club. Been finished for a while but I got some feedback from some peops and it needs to be revised. The 1st act should be completely changed and I'm thinking about deleting the voiceover.
  • Untitled Freshman movie. I love this idea lately. A teen comedy set in 1992 with music by Belly, The Pixies, The Breeders and the Throwing Muses. I have the first act pretty clearly sketched out in my brain, I just need to get it down on paper.
  • Gogol movie (Diary of a Madman is a bad title I think now). Mr. Savage and I wrote this a while back but it's fallen by the wayside. I started revising it again last but stopped because of personal reasons. It's too good of an idea to give up though.
  • Road Trip Movie. I wrote the first act of this movie loosely based on my Brother and I driving across country in his VW bus. Needs to be finished.
  • Car Service short film. I got this idea during the last film contest I did and I've been meaning to write it for a while. My Volvo makes the craziest sounds and I think it'd be funny if a guy started his own Car service in his brookyn neighborhood with a crappy car.
  • Stand Up documentary. I love the stand-up scene in New York, and although there have been a few docs about the process lately (Seinfeld's comedian, The Aristocrats) I think they are ignoring the little guy, ie. me. Of all my ideas, I actually think this one has the greatest potential to make money. It's like i have the bullet point of a pitch already floating in my brain. I should move forward on this one.
  • Fantasy novel(s). I've been making progress in crafting the first volume of a fantasy trilogy set in a world of my devising. After I wrote a few chapters, I relaised I needed more backstory and went back to creating more details. I think now I need to write a short story based on the world to set the page.
  • Fantasy short story. I know the basic story I want to tell. It will cement a lot of details about Dwenelen. Now I just need to write it.
  • Article about Penciltopia. I think my friends are doing something amazing with running programs to teach kids about stop-motion animation. It's something I think people would want to read about and it might even make me some money in the process :). I need to finish writing an informed query letter pitching the idea to good magazines.
  • Articles. So far, the only money I've received from writing have been from writing about video games for online publications. I need t use the Writer's market and start coming up with ne and better ideas for articles. And then write the query letters for them.
I've written these kind of lists before. Sometimes they help keep me on pace, sometimes they serve as reminders to flog myself for not accomplishing any of them. Whatever happens, this list will remain in the internets for all time. Perhaps 100 years from now, someone will read it and wonder where that crazy Bob Jingle ended up.