Fantasy Team

Here's a little clip from a set I did at the Comedy Village on Thursday. It's a new joke, and I'm glad there were some fellow dorks in the crowd. I have to admit though, I'm being a little hypocritical here. I do have a fantasy baseball team. But my team blows, mostly because I don't know what the crap I'm doing. So I still got my dork street cred yo.



See you tonight at the Broadway. Show's at 7pm!

Greg On Broadway

Yes, I will be on Broadway. I will sing the songs, I will dance the dance and gyrate sexily with a flimsy dress that has lots of streamers. And I will be hot. Also, the songs will all be by ABBA or Billy Joel or Phil Collins. I haven't decided. Maybe Barry Manilow. He was great. He wrote the songs, you know.

I know the Broadway isn't anyone's favorite club but they put on a lot of comics and have a good relationship with Mr. Jim Gaffigan and other bigger comics, like Carrottop. And while they may be blowing smoke up my anal canal, they seem to like me. I need 10 people to come on Saturday so if you want to see some funny shit, tell your friends and rock out on Broadway.

Broadway Comedy Club4/28/2007, 7:00pm

218 West 53rd St., bet 8th and 9th, NY, NY

Cover: $15. Only $12 if advance reservation is made on VIP line: 212-252-4255

What is the Algorithm?

I've been seeing these billboards in the city recently. I don't know what they are about. There is no mention of any product or even a website at the bottom to check. There is really no clue as to what the message is other than the recurrence of the Algorithm mentioned. In the past, New York has seen some interesting viral marketing campaigns before viral was used to describe something other than why you were puking all day. I remember Peter Barbieri, this TD I used to work with, told us how when Ghostbusters was being advertised in the subways, they used an all black sign with just the No Ghosts symbol in the center.

Man, remember Peter Barbieri? He was great. I used to work in his shop in Ossining, NY. I'd take the Metro North Hudson Line north against traffic and commute to Ossining, the location of Sing Sing prison, in case you were wondering. Peter used to go into the prison and help the inmates put on shows. He told us he couldn't bring in a SawsAll though.

What the fuck was I talking about? Oh yeah, the algorithm. Your guess is as good as mine.

Spoiler

Saw this the other day near my apartment. RIP Curtis, indeed. But is this really a fitting memorial for the death of Curtis Manning on 24?

4:20

My brother gave me his old Ipod. I've been against the infrenal machines for years, as I've documented here before. Mostly because they cost so much without the necessary payoff. I've had a 40 gb Creative jukebox for 3 years. It's never crapped out once or needed to have the battery replaced. Try to get the same story from any ipod owner. If it's a mini, forget it.

But here it was, a free 60 gb ipod. How could I turn that down? I decided to give it a shot. I tested it out on my laptop, getting the few tracks I keep on there for my wife . . . Mephistopholes.

Last night, I tried to install itunes on my computer at home. First off, Quicktime is a bitch and infects every fucking thing, but whatever, I'll deal with that later. Then I try to install the ipod but it says I can't because it's already has a library on another computer (my laptop). Plus there are songs that I bought there which I don't have the licenses for on my home computer. Itunes tells me to either cancel copying of those tracks or do a complete reset. I try to reset the thing, as prompted, so that I can start fresh. And it tells me that I have to plug it into the wall in order to complete the reset. Mi hermano never gave me the wall plug, because he thought I didn't need it. So now I have a brick which I can't use.

My Creative doesn't freak out when I plug it into different machines. And I thought Ipods were so useful, part of the Apple Zeitgeist that is busy making peoples lives better while charging a petamillion for it. They are the acerbic hip dude from Waiting, and I'm just the fat funny guy from the Daily Show. I'd rather be the fat funny dude, honestly.

I'm going to try this tonight, http://www.mgtek.com/dopisp/. It's a plugin for WMP that works with ipods. Maybe it will be less stressful than dealing with itunes, i always liked WMP's interface better.

Oh and 420, dude.

Jack Thompson is an asshole

Why is he on FOX News as a "School Shooting Expert"? He is not an expert. He is an attorney who represents victims of teen violence in civil suits against companies like Take Two by using the Videogame Made Them Do It Defense. And loses. He is now linking the shooting in Virginia to videogames somehow, even though there is a mess of evidence that this dude was way fucked up anyway. It's preposterous, and yet he still gets the press. Who's dick is he sucking to get on Fox News? That's the 35 thousand dollar question. Smart money's on Oprah, but that could just be a dream I had.

Check out some of the crazy. You won't be disappointed.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/jack-thompson/

I recently saw a bit on Fox News (it plays non-stop in the cafeteria at work) where the host was talking about a Washington Post article mentioning that the shooter played Counterstrike, a popular FPS, in high school. Kotaku also has a bit about how that point was edited out, probably for two reasons, one being the fact that it was deemed irrelevant and the other being the fact that VIDEOGAMES DO NOT MAKE PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE!

Ok, I'm off to go home and play on my Columbine Simulator, er, I mean, my Xbox.

New shows posted

I've booked a couple of upcoming shows. Some of them are even on weekends for those of you who've been clamoring for the comedy but can't rock out on a weekday.

Broadway Comedy Club
4/28/2007, 7:00pm
218 West 53rd St., bet 8th and 9th, NY, NY
Cover: $15. Only $12 if advance reservation is made on VIP line: 212-252-4255
I need ten for this show, I'll love you forever if you come on down!

Giragosian Showcase at Broadway Comedy Club
5/3/2007, 9:30pm
218 West 53rd St., bet 8th and 9th, NY, NY
Cover: $1, two drinks
This is a reschedule of Julie's gig from when I had the Shing. East Lyme WOO!

Laugh Factory Gig
5/12/2007, 8:00pm
Cover: TBA, not sure
First time at this club, excited to check it out.

Gotham with Jessica Kirson
Tue, May 22, 2007, 8 - 10pm
Where: Gotham Comedy Club, 23rd bet. 7th and 8th
Ahh, back to Gotham...

As always, check out the calendar for upcoming shows.

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Thanks for the love

A big thank you for everyone who made it to my shows at EAT's Laugh Out Loud Fest last week. Doing twenty minutes was a great learning experience, as was hosting on Friday. It's all contributive to my world domination tour and you were a part of it.

THANKS!

Here's a sign of my gratitude:

I love the theater!

The first of my three comedy nights this week went awesome. Me and a deep lineup of funny chicks (including the gay host) rocked the house last night at EAT. Of course, rocking the house means we received giggles aplenty from the 4 men in the audience who weren't comics. I guess the Monday night after Easter is a tough sell for people.

Not to beat any kind of dead livestock, I have another show tonight. To be frightfully honest, this is a really decent oppurtunity to see me do 20 minutes of KILLER material. It's only 10 bucks, the chairs are comfy and the cans of Rolling Rock are (mostly) cold. I'll be up tonight doing a set and then on Friday I'm hosting so you'll get to see me spread all over the place.

Here's the stat block, again:

EAT - Emerging Artist Theatre
311 W. 43rd St, 5th Floor Between 8th and 9th Avenue. (Closer to 8th Avenue.)
Show Starts at 7pm
Tonight, 4.10 and Friday, 4.13!

NY weekend

So it's Wednesday and I'm only now writing about what happened on the weekend. I know. I'm the promptest blogger you know, admit it.

On Friday, my wife, Mephistopholes, got a call from our downstairs neighbor. Usually he calls to see if we are having similar problems with the landlord. Like he called a lot this winter because his heat was basically off for the entire month of February, aka the coldest fucking month of the year. The neighbor, I'll call him Jeremy, because that's his name and I'm over the whole anonymous thing I think, travels often and came home one night from Uzbekistan or whatever to find his breath was now visible inside his apartment. Not a good sign. We felt his pain but our heat was fine, that is until last week where our cheap ass Polish landlord (I'm not saying being Polish has anything to do with it, not really) decided to fix the boiler himself instead of calling a repairman. So the problem, which could have been fixed in a day, took 6. Yes, I was without heat for a week. We survived, mostly by snuggling together closely and having lots of sex. That's even what my landlord suggested we do. Fuck like rabbits to heat the apartment. I wish I was kidding about that.

Anyway, my neighbor, Jeremy, called last Friday not about the heat, but to invite us to a movie screening. He works in the movies, I thought he was a visual effects supervisor guy, he has done some awesome movies like Pi, Life Aquatic and a shitload of others. The NYC marathon goes by our house and the two of us usually have a competing brunch parties where our friends come over to eat bacon while 30,000 people run past us. I found out after this years event that Darren Aranofsky, director of Pi and more recently, The Fountain, was at the brunch. I seem to remember him flirting with Mephistopholes. I'll have to kill him. But back to the point, kind of, I basically want to be Jeremy. He actually makes his living making movies. And he makes really cool ones. But at least I can somehow reap the benefits of living above him.

He called on Friday to invite us to a screening of Wes Anderson's newest film. Mephistopheles and I were like, sure. So we go to the Viacom building, 1515 Broadway, home to a little network you might have heard of called Music Television or some such. We are directed to a posh elevator bank, and go up to the Paramount Offices with glass tables and movie posters on the walls from the current releases. Again, it is posh. Up a few steps is the entrance to the cinema they have in the building. At the double doors are standing two men, one is a bookish gentleman with long hair and a blazer, the other is Jeremy. I go to shake hands with my neighbor, at the same moment that I realize the other dude is Wes Anderson himself. I recognize him from the AMEX commercial. I wish I had the wherewithal to at least introduce myself to Mr. Anderson but I think there were some studio big wigs behind me because a split second after I say hi to Jeremy, both he and Wes were locked on the fat balding dude coming up the steps. If I know anything about the movies it's that fat balding men are always studio execs. So I didn't intrude and went to go find a seat.

There weren't any left. Seriously, a private showing, and there were no seats left. Would my tardiness prevent us from receiving this gift from the heavens, this manna? No, some hot female PAs, who are infinitely more happy at their jobs than I am at mine, busted out some chairs and Mephistopheles and I sat in the aisle and watched the first Public Screening of The Darjeeling Limited. That's right, Wes even came out and told us so before it started. They hadn't shown it to anyone yet. No one. We were the first to see the cut film, other than the editors and the director himself. It was a great honor. Oh, and Wes told us that his colleague Jeremy would be talking to us after the screening to gather some feedback. Jeremy is Wes Anderson's colleague now? What the fuck am I doing?

The movie starts and it's fucking great. Just great. The first ten minutes or so is a short film with Jason Schwartzman and Padme (I forget her name). The film ends and credits roll. Then the real film begins with a shot of Bill Murray in the back of an Indian cab. I'm not going to give anything away, but it's a great role for him, I'm so glad Wes used Bill like that. (I'm on first name basis with them now, I went to private screening.) The rest of it stars Owen Wilson, Schwartzman and Anderson newcomer, Adrian Brody. The three of them are brothers who meet in India a year after their father's death to go on a spiritual journey. The train they meet on? The Darjeeling Limited.

After the movie, we were given blank sheets of paper and a golf pencil. I've been to a few of these screenings before, they usually give you a worksheet with specific questions like "Did you think the film needed a better ending? Choose one: Strongly agree, agree, don't give a shit, wish you could shoot yourself." It was weird having a blank slate to say what you thought. But after being a little put off (how do you write comments to one of your idols?) I warmed up to the process. I wrote a whole page of things I liked and didn't like. Mephistopholes started to get pissed that I was taking so long but I didn't care. I was here to write what though so I did. I was proud of it. I even signed my name at the bottom.

Leaving the theater, Wes was nowhere to be seen. My guess is he bugged out after the movie, he probably couldn't bear to see 100 hipsters scribbling down "you suck." Wes's colleague, Jeremy, was the guy who facilitated the passing out of the paper. I met him after and handed in our comments. We chatted for a few moments about the movie. I tried to sound like I knew what I was talking about. In retrospect, I probably sounded like a douche. Character development? Did I actually just say that? But he listened attentively and then bowed out of the convo, saying he had to go and read everyone's comments now.

That was my Friday night. Mephistopholes and I talked about the movie the whole way home on the L train (except for that innocuous conversation with that hip art gallery owner). She told me she saw Jeremy's name in the credits of the movie. He's not a visual effects anything anymore, Jeremy, my downstairs neighbor, the guy with no heat who complains about the landlord and has competing brunches with me? He is one of Wes Anderson's producers. He produces for Wes Anderson! Wes Anderson was basically like, "I've got this idea for a movie, want to make it with me?" and Jeremy is like, "Sure, Wes."

I want to be him so badly.



This post was meant to encapsulate the whole of my weekend but I already wrote a freaking tome about Friday night. I'll spare you the rest. Here's the short short version: I went to a NY Islanders game on Sat. night, my first hockey experience and it was awesome. Brutally awesome. On Sun., My wife and I looked at buying new homes in Ditmas Park. We are screwed, we'll never own any apartment bigger than a breadbox. That is all.

New and exciting

Emerging Artist Theatre is a having a Comedy Week of programming at their space in midtown next week. Monday through Saturday, they are having a bunch of clowns and shit. Seriously, clowns.

On Monday, Tuesday and Friday though, they're having a few standup comedians do their thing as well as a sketch group each night. I'm doing a set every night but the big news is that I'll be doing TWENTY MINUTES. That's a long time. I've never done that much before. I have a lot of material, sure, but I've never put it all together like that. It will be a challenge, but that's what comedy is all about. Wait, is that what it's about? Challenge? Crap, maybe I'm doing this wrong...

Here are the details:

EAT - Emerging Artist Theatre
311 W. 43rd St, 5th Floor Between 8th and 9th Avenue. (Closer to 8th Avenue.)
Show Starts at 7pm
Monday, Tuesday and Friday! The 9th, 10th and 13th of April!

Tickets are $10. Not sure about liquor right now, may be comped with a beer sponsor, may be cheap like $2 cans. No minimums or anything like that.

See you there. And be square. I like squares.