Greg at Gotham tomorrow, 3.1.06

It’s on like Donkey Kong at Gotham tomorrow. There will be much rejoicing and laughter, along with a fair amount of drinking.

Come down and celebrate Ash Wednesday with me. I need to get 10 people there so send me a note if you think you can make it to the show.

• When: Wednesday, March 1^st, 8:00pm
• Where: The NEW Gotham Comedy Club, 208 W. 23rd Street, bet. 7^th and 8th
• What: funny stuff
• How: Call 212.367.9000 and make a reservation
• How much: Cover charge is $10 with a 2 drink minimum.

Improv gig rescheduled, Gotham up next, 3.1.06

The geniuses at the Improv, in their infinite wisdom, overbooked the show on Saturday night with way too many comics. At one point, I was only going to get 5 minutes and was not assured of even going on stage if I had less than 10 people in their dingy basement. 9 people would have payed and they wouldn’t even have seen how amazingly funny I am. Or not, as the case may be. So I rescheduled the date for sometime in March. I’ll let you know more details soon.

But to keep the comedy train chuggin along, I want tell you guys about my next show at Gotham. I love doing shows there, the space is so much more classy and inviting than any other club in the city. Call to reserve a spot now, there are always funny people there (besides me.)

• When: Wednesday, March 1^st, 8:30pm
• Where: The NEW Gotham Comedy Club, 208 W. 23rd Street, bet. 7^th and 8th
• What: funny stuff
• How: Call 212.367.9000 and make a reservation
• How much: Cover charge is $10 with a 2 drink minimum.

A tiny experiment

If you're happy and you know it, post a comment!

Come on guys, show me you care. Or I will kill myself! I've got a Cure record playing right now, I'll fucking do it! "Show me, show me, show me."

How's that for getting attention? (shrugs) Whatever, worked in High school.

At the Improv this Saturday, 2.18.06

There is only thing I am certain of: I am not funny. I mean, seriously, look at that stupid photo of me. That’s about as unfunny as you can get.

But now I get the chance to be not funny in front of a whole bunch of people, including a panel of talent managers from reputable talent agencies and scouts from the no longer cancelled Last Comic Standing. That’s right, there will be a small (infinitesimally tiny) chance that my unfunny ass will be picked by a cable affiliate. I hope I’m the first one voted off the island.

Come to see me be extremely serious this weekend at The Improv.

• When: Saturday, 7pm
• Where: The Improv, 318 West 53rd Street, bet. 8^th and 9th
• What: (un)funny stuff
• How: Call 212.613.1649 and make a reservation
• How much: Cover charge is $15 with a 2 drink minimum. (Cover is $12 if you reserve ahead of time so pick up that phone!)

Let me know if you can make it.

I fucking hate Valentine's Day

It's a made up holiday. It should be banned.

That is all.

Wicked Wiccans

Ok, so I've been neglecting my little blogosphere. I'll admit it. 2 times in two months is not very satisfying (just ask my wife!) and I know it.

To be honest, I haven't had anything on my mind that I wanted to rant/write about. I mean, I think about crazy ideas all the time (like why is it every time we have a mild winter, people clamor that it's global warming in action? We've only been recording temperatures with any accuracy for the last hundred years or so. I'm sure there have been milder winters than this one.) but most of them haven't been spongeworthy. Plus, work, busy, blah, blah, blah, and the general excuses one comes up with for not doing something regularly that they should. It's not just blogging, I haven't been to the gym in 3 weeks. So not only am I an ineffectual and impotent blogger, I'm a ineffectual blogger with a fat ass.

On to what I want to talk about.

I got into a philosophical/religious email debate with a friend of mine who shall remain nameless. I won't go into the sordid (and there are many) details, but he has recently been exposed to the Wiccan belief system by a self-proclaimed vegetarian (not vegan.) He says that Wiccans revere nature, that all of their rituals and holidays are associated with the changing of seasons and other natural phenomena. The vegetarian chosses to be a vegetarian because they don't want to consume something which they revere.

I reacted negatively to this hogwash. I'm not exactly sure why. At the risk of offending my friend, I had to point out what I thought was wrong with that line of thinking. I guess I have an argumentative nature when it comes to religion. I was raised catholic, I was married in the catholic church, I'll probably die an guilt-ridden, alcoholic, child-abusing catholic, but I don't really go to church on days that don't involve rabbits, candy or trees. That being said, I enjoy arguing about theology and religion. It’s part of what defines my relationship with my mother and father, that I argue with them. It’s not necessarily a lack of respect. I think they are blind to certain truths which I believe irrefutable, and vice versa. I have accepted the fact that what they have chosen for their life is the best for them. The catholic religion has been a place of solace and comfort for my mom. It is nothing but monotony and misguided faith for me.

Wiccans seem even more misguided than catholics, if that's possible. My friend tells me that the vegetarian (it's getting harder to keep names and situations vague but I'm going to plow through it so as not to offend) is "one" with nature and cast spells, lights candles, performs rituals and sacrifices small birds. I made that last one up. See how easy it is to make fun of? I'm a big fan of fantasy and Tolkien and D&D and various dork practices, but I realise that it's all fiction. Somehow, wiccans never got the memo and believe that casting spells is how you go about dealing with life.

But besides the craziness of Wiccan, I've got issues with someone choosing not to eat animals for any supposed connection they have with them. For one, the animal doesn't care if you eat them beyond a fight or flee instinct. #2, humans evolved beyond animals by killing them. Ancient humans were able to eat more protein, which led to growing larger brains. Also, the killing of animals led to clothing ourselves in skins, using the fat to burn, and countless other technologies. To extrapolate, civilization would not have existed without killing a shitload of cows, goats and horses.

The vegetarian counters that it's okay to kill an animal if you personally kill it, skin it and consume it. Like that distinction is ok for some reason. Once again, I say that's like taking a giant step backward in human civilization. Let me explain: I’m not a hunter. I don’t choose to spend time stalking a beast, slaying it, gutting it, skinning it, hanging it, then butchering it. I pay someone else to do that. When I buy meat from a store, I am paying the farmer, the truck driver who brought it to me, the butcher who prepared it, the cashier who sold it to me and everyone else along the way who put that meat into my hands. Those people choose not to answer phones for a banking executive (who incidentally is probably connected to the subsidies which keep the farms in business.) When I buy that meat, I am trading my time for all of theirs. That’s what commerce is all about. What is wrong with that? Am I supposed to kill and grow all my own food? If that were even possible, I would spend all of my time doing so. It is precisely the specialization of different professions which brought about the growth of cizilization as a whole.

And it's exactly this kind of sloppy thinking that bothers me about the whole wiccan thing. It sounds all cool and spiritual to say, hey, I'm choosing to love nature and love my fellow man and cast spells (roll the die!), but it's also like choosing to live in a hut for the rest of your life and eat bugs. Yeah, it's possible, even tantalizing in our busy world sometimes, but we as a race have evolved past these vague superstitions.

All of this made me think about what exactly it is I believe in. It's not much, but to me, we are the only gods. Humans have learned to use their intellect and industriousness to shape our lives and carve out a comfortable existence amidst a dangerous and unpredictable world. Even two hundred years ago, natural disasters such as the Tsunami or Katrina, would have caused so much more devastation and death than they did in 2005. That is a direct result of man, not any god.

We have evolved past the idea of personalizing things we can’t control, like nature, weather, inspiration, etc. There is no God, gods or anything else out there. It's just us, baby. Just this Earth. And no amount of lighting candles, praying, casting spells, meditating, prostrating will make the superstition real.

Greg at the NEW Gotham, 1.25.06

Hi Neighbors!

Next big night of comedy is coming up next week on Wednesday. Yeah, that’s right. I’m giving you all the perfect excuse to get plowed in the middle of the week. (“I’m sorry that report’s not in, Boss. I was watching my friend try to be funny at Gotham last night.” “That’s ok, Billy…You’re fired.”) And you get to see the new and improved Gotham. They’ve moved a few blocks west and opened up more seating but they kept the great classy feel of the old one. I think they’re really making the push to be best comedy club in the city. There are going to be big people hosting and closing this show, people you’ve seen on TV and crap. I’ll let you know who they are when they tell me.

• When: Wednesday, January 25th, 8:30pm


• 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 $10 with a 2 drink minimum.

This ain’t no crappy uptown show, so you better come down and check out the funniest place on earth.

Gotham should hire me to write slogans for them. The Funniest Place on Earth? GOLDEN<

Rectal Teapot?

My goddamn rock solid ghetto shiznit name is


Rectal Teapot, Yo.


What's yours?


Powered by Rum and Monkey.

Nerf Shamans!

With 5 million subscribers, you're going to get a few undesirables. Statistically, the person behind the Tauren might occasionally be a murderer or a child molestor. Hell, you could even be ganked in STV by an Orc Hunter that just happens to be Kim Jong Il, or maybe even Saddam is the Undead Rogue camping the farm in AB.

But graffittiists? Those malicious destroyers of public property? World of Warcraft is not free of them either. Here, they have marred the beauty that is an LAX bathroom stall. Those bastards! I'm ashamed to be in the same Azeroth with people like this:

Greg at the Underground Lounge, 1.6.05

I hope everybody had a great New Year’s. There always so much pressure involved with going out that night. It’s like you must have the absolute most fun you’ve ever had in your entire life every year on December 31st. That’s a lot to live up to. I decided to forego any kind of drunken celebration and irresponsible revelry and instead I spent the night watching Unwrapped on the Food Network with my pussycat, Cuddles…Ah, who’m I kidding? I was stone drunk on New Year’s. I don’t even have cable.

Anyway, I want to tell you all about some shows I’ve got coming up. The first is a small gig back at the Underground Lounge up near Columbia. I like this place a lot, it’s a tiny room that can only fit 30 people, but it’s what they call in the biz, intimate. Which is actually code for cheap. I hope to continue doing small booked shows there on a regular basis.

When: Friday, January 6th, 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.

I’ve also got two shows coming up at the end of the month at Gotham and the Improv. More details to follow in a few days, including information about the new and improved Gotham club on 23rd and 8th. I’m pysched that I already have a show booked there, and they actually called me!

Talk to you soon.

Christmas in the city

Christmas Eve Eve. Dec. 23rd. It's here. Whoop de do.

I used to anticipate Christmas so much. I guess every kid did. The entire month of December was a huge excitement ramp-up to the payday of the 25th. School was out, there could even be snow outside my door in Connecticut. Lots of candy, cookies. And presents for everyone.

I remember when I was in 3rd grade, I wanted a Transformers watch for Christmas so bad. The Transformers rocked. I watched the cartoon nearly religously after school, the show was paired nicely with G.I. Joe as an hour long block of greatness. The similarity of these two shows is an uncanny coincidence, two evil leaders always at odds with each other (Megatron and Starscream, Serpetnor and Cobra Commander [voiced by the same guy as Starscream, I'd bet], rogue evil group loyal to their leader (Dreadnoughts, Insecticons.) The plots were like a kid soap opera, an ever evolving storyline detailing the struggles between the Autobots and the Decepticons (or Joe and Cobra.) My favorite episodes were the five parter story arcs that spanned a whole week's worth of shows and usually added characters (read: more toy sales) like the Dinobots or the Constructicons. I added to their stories by acting out intricate scenarios in my bedroom, complete with all the battles and betrayals that two rival groups of toys could have (I had more Autobots so I had to have a few switch sides to even out the numbers, I was nothing if not a fair God.)

Wow, I just got way off track there. Transformers will do that. Anyway, that Christmas in 198?, I had a list of toys and shit that I would recite in my prayers every night (yeah, I prayed back then.) One of the most hoped-for was a Transformers watch, which I thought would be the penultimate time-keeping device of my short life. It was detachable robot that I could wear on my wrist. Hello? That's freaking cool.

I couldn't sleep the night before Christmas. I went to bed way early so that I could bring the morning all that much closer. My eyes were wide open in the darkness of my room, imagining all the wonders of my Transformers watch. I don't know how it happened but all of a sudden, the sun was out and it was 5:57 am. I ran down the stairs to check out my shit.

My parents were different, they never wrapped the gifts from Santa. I guess they were tired of the expense of wrapping paper (the U.S. had a huge wrapping paper shortage back then) but I think they were just lazy. They just piled up everything for me and my siblings in separate piles and left a little notecard scribbled with my Dad's handwriting that read, "To Greg, From Santa." Genius.

So I could tell right away that, although I got tons of shit, I didn't get my Transformers watch. All the anticipating for that whole month was wasted. I felt like I got punched in the stomach by Santa, that fat fuck. Why wouldn't he give me the Tranformers watch I prayed for every night? What's the point of praying if you don't get the shit you ask for for christmas? On top of that, I found out later at school that Mark Swensen got a fucking Transformers watch and he didn't even want one. Upon examining Mark's watch, I also found out that the watch was pretty lame, the robot didn't detach very easily and the display was just that one line digital thing all cheapo watches had back in the 80s. But still, Santa should have gotten his act together and gotten me one so I could have hated it on my own, instead of only hating Mark Swensen.

Christmas was a huge event when you were 7 years old. A year seemed like a really long time, and Christmas was the only time you got a whole bunch of new stuff (along with your birthday.) Somewhere along the line, Christmas a got less important. In high school and college, Christmas still meant time off from school, but I found myself longing for that "Christmassy" feeling of excitement felt in my bones. Sometimes, it didn't come until midnight mass and I smelled the mixture of incense and evergreens. Sometimes it didn't come at all. Twenty years later, I guess Christmas still means traveling to see family, eating cookies and candy canes, but the only excitement I have now is experienced vicariouly through the little nieces and nephews I'm going to visit. They look forward to Christmas as I once did. They still have the wide-eyed love of anything red and green. They still anticipate the coming of December 25th with an excitement and glee that I have lost.

I suppose I need to have kids pretty soon or I'm going to end up being one of those characters in literature who curse the holiday with vehemence. I'm beginning to see why there are so many suicides during Christmas. They all must long for that feeling they had as a child, only to have it replaced by lonliness and the terror of growing up. It makes sense to me now.

Merry Christmas. Bah Humbug.

LaughDance revisited...

After the initial excitement of getting that call, I began to worry. The "audition" was at New York Comedy Club, where only the best comics perform. That's a mother load of sarcasm there, if you didn't catch it. The NYCC is possibly my least favorite place ever created by human hands, second only to a bar in Kimball, Nebraska.

My misgivings were proved correct. At least 50% of the performers on my last show at the Improv were called to "audition" on Sunday night. I was not in some exclusive group. It seems they called everybody who got at least one laugh (that left out the 50+ schoolteacher and Mr. Will.) As if that wasn't bad enough, they announced the order for the "audition" show (you like how I keep putting that in quotes? I'm so pretentious) I was second to last on the list. That is probably the worst postition, because I didn't even have the dubious distinction of being the last comic, which might garner me a few more laughs.

So anyway, I did my set, and I killed. Or at least I did good enough that I wasn't going to go buy razor blades. I gave the dude my phone number and I split, trudging into the cold New York wind. I doubt I'm going to get any call. But there it is. My first brush with the biz. It's all uphill from here.

<>

LaughDance

Good Freaking News!

I got a call on Monday from Robert Brooks from the Improv telling me that I got a call back for the LaughDance comedy festival (which happens Utah at the same time as Sundance.) Apparently, a guy the festival who was at my last show at the Improv liked my set and asked to see more of my stuff. Which is weird because I thought that nobody got any of my jokes that night. The crowd was more interested in leaving the room and getting their drink on than listening to me prattle on about Christmas shopping in NY.

Despite my tone, I'm really excited. I hope I get to go to LaughDance. I've already planned out my wardrobe for my trip to snowy Utah and I know exactly what I will say to Robert Redford when I shake his hand:

"I really love your salsa, but it's way too expensive." Or is that the other guy?

Greg at the Underground Lounge, 12.10.05

Thank you all for coming out to my show at the New York Comedy Club. It was a wonderful time which we will all remember forever. For those of you who couldn’t make it, consider yourselves lucky you didn’t have to listen to a ghastly parody of an Eminem tune(isn’t Eminem a parody already?) and Ishmael the Amish Puerto Rican.

I’m trying out a new venue, at least for booked shows. The Underground is a nice, tiny space up near the Columbia campus. I’ve been there for open mics before and the crowd is usually pretty fun. The biggest plus is that the cover is a little cheaper than other places, and the drinks aren’t too bad either.

Plus, it will be funny.

• When: Saturday, December 10th, 9:30pm
• Where: Underground Lounge, 955 West End Avenue @ 107th St./Broadway
• What: funny stuff
• How: just show up
• How much: Cover charge is $8 with 2 drink minimum. Cokes are $3.

Brand Spanking New

Good morning, Interweb!

I started this blog to help me promote my stand up appearances in the New York City area. That way, all of you who have been clamoring to learn more about my shows will get all that and more.

And in case that email I sent you gets buried in the inbox beneath penis enlargement oppurtunities and marraige proposals from Russian brides, you can always check back here to get the details of all my shows.

That's the plan anyway. We'll see how it works. I apologize for the look of the site right now as well, I'll be editing this html up to something cooler looking soon.

See you on stage!

Larson knows what I'm talking about

"No day but today."
-Rent (2005)

For years, I did not really consider myself a musical guy. I mean, I liked the random songs of my childhood from "The Hills Are Alive" to a rousing Muppet Love Song. It didn't help that the only music I listened to in my room were the Disney movie soundtracks of The Jungle Book and Cinderella. I always liked the fast, witty songs with lots of clever rhyming lyrics. The "Spoonful of Sugar" (I must have some weird obsession with Julie Andrews) and the Dentist song. Any slow love song would bore the crap out of my 8 year old mentality and when the movie was on VHS, I would usually fast-forward.

Last week, Mephistopholes and I went to go see the movie verision Rent the day it came out. I found myself watching the film with tears in my eyes for most of its duration. Not because of it was sad and not because I was gay (well, maybe), but because it is so emotionally charged. I had the same feeling when I saw "The Lion King" on stage or the national tour of Superstar.

There is so much power in someone belting out exactly how they feel in song. Laying it all out in clever turns of phrase. The sheer performing of it is powerful too. The characters, more often than not, are singing to each other. Some people don't like musicals because it doesn't make any sense for someone to start singing when they should be talking. But that's exactly what makes musicals cool, the characters get say what they are feeling in somewhat poetic language. Sometimes it is the magnitude of having such a vivid stage picture with singing dancing and moving sets that makes my eyes well up with the beauty of it all. (I don't get it. I'm not a very emotional guy but nearly I every time I go to these shows, I end up sobbing like a little bitch.)

MINIREVIEW OF RENT THE MOVIE: I've never seen Rent on stage but I've had the original cast recording for years. The movie is set in 1989 New York, the dirty crime infested peak of the city's sordid past. It made sense to keep the original cast from the musical, even though most of them were too old for the roles, it didn't matter. The magic of movies is that a 26-year-old can play a teenager (Can't Hardly Wait) and nobody bats an eye. Anthony Rapp (better known as Tony from Dazed and Confused) was great as the dorky filmmaker and I liked the original Tom Collins and Angel. They kept most of the songs from the score, even though they "musicalized" the script a bit. Rent was actually an opera where all the words were sung. In the movie, they spoke some of the lyrics and added bits of dialogue and, sometimes, whole scenes. This works for the most part but I missed two moments. One is the "Christmas bells are ringing" medley that probably wouldn't work on film where all the characters have their different plotlines mingle right before Maureen's performance. In the movie, these events are stretched out over several days. But one song, or portion of a song really, that was wrongly cut was Mark's and Roger's fight near the end of Act Two. It's really the only time that anyone calls out Mark as being the only one who is A) not in love B) not gay and C) not dying of AIDS. Without Roger telling him off, we are left to question Mark's place in the whole movie. Why is he there? Why does he merely observe as opposed to actively participating? And the weird thing is, I'm almost positive that scene was shot and it ended up on the cutting room floor. The next scene is "Living in America" in which Mark and Roger sing about their fight (it also has a cheesy montage of intercut scenes of Roger on a butte in Arizona and Mark on the roof of a building in NY that is laughably lame). That song makes no sense if the previous fight is cut but yet they did it, probably for "pacing reasons." (How many director's commentaries have you heard where they describe a deleted scene was cut because of fucking pacing? Who cares about pacing?)

Anyway, the movie was good. And I like musicals. There I said it. Fuck off.

There is a battle

I've spoken before about the wonders of New York City. I stand by my words, that NY is a city of superlatives. So many of its denizens are striving to succeed, like so many weeds spreading their leaves to catch a few rays of sunshine. The city is not easy to live in, but that is what makes its success stories so valuable. You can also argue (and I have told myself this over andover again) that merely existing here for so long (5.5 years) is an accomplishment in and of itself.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. Not really. I don't even know if the two subjects are necessarily related. Maybe they are a little. Can you tell I'm hving trouble starting this bitch?

I have two people inside me. One is a recluse. He would like nothing more than to go home after work, play World of Warcraft, eat Ramen and tomato soup and never speak to anyone. He smokes and jerks off on a consistently disgusting pace. He drinks coffee and blackberry brandy. He stays up until 4am playing Civ4 and then sleeps until 2. He watches all the LOTR movies in one day, buys the Xbox 360 on Ebay, and satisfies his every nasty whim. He is selfish, never giving time to his wife or his friends. Just coasting on whatever makes him happy at that given moment. I am totally capable of turning into this person, sometimes for long stretches of time.

The other person in me is the acheiver. He is the guy who wanted to be a writer since he was a kid. He does everything he can to make something. He loves stage managing theater, but gave it up because it interfered with his dream. He is the guy who writes plays about writer writing plays. He has a great idea for a fantasy series. He produces movies and plays because he loves to create. He is married (to Mephistopholes, but that's a different story.) He goes to the gym. He plays basketball. He gets up in front of people and tries to make them laugh, because he likes it. He blogs. He puts too much on his plate, because he knows about the other guy.

These two parts of my psyche are always fighting. The acheiver feels guilty when I spend too much time as the Recluse. Perhaps it's my Catholic upbringing, but guilt is a big part of my motivation. And yet, the Recluse is the carrot held up before the Acheiver. "Just makes this movie, and you can spend some time as me." It's a weird, freaky relationship. It's one that I end up talking about often in my writing. I wrote a short film script in which the two characters are the two I'm describing. It sucks, but it clearly outlines this distinction.

Recently, I've realized that everybody fights this battle. I am not unique. My situation may be more pronounced than non-artists, if only becuase my chosen vocation (writing, art) is not the same job that I go to every day. I see Mephistopholes go through this battle when she talks about auditions. But I also see Rain Delay talk about it when he describes his cases at work. It's not easy to fight this battle, especially when you don't understand it.

It is crucial to grasp this concept though, because it is at the core of what makes us human. We are not content to just eat, sleep and live until we die. We must acheive something. Even if it is just to pass on one's genes to the next generation, we all have the need to create, to get that raise, to improve our lot. The choice to NOT create is the same as choosing death.

But you don't have to take my word for it. (Ba-da-bump!)

Andy Dufresne: Get busy living, or get busy dying.
-The Shawshank Redemption(1994)

Rob: I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.
-High Fidelity (2000)

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: [narrating] Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?
-Trainspotting(1996)

I hate to do this

I find the "Sorry I haven't posted in so long, I'm so busy," posts to be freaking annoying but it's been really true in my case. Here's an incomplete list of the crap I've had on my plate lately:

• I have to write another videogame article that’s due tomorrow which I haven't started yet. (it's all in my head, I just ahve to get it down on paper)
  
• I have to edit and send off a full-length screenplay by Friday for the second round of a screenplay competition
• I have to keep up with producing the short film for Movie Making Madness 2005 which needs to be postmarked on Saturday.
• I have to write a play by December 7th for a playwright's discussion
• I have a basketball game tonight and if we win, we'll make the playoffs
• My 2^nd wedding anniversary tomorrow and I haven't bought anything for my wife yet.
• I have a comedy show that noone is coming to on Wednesday (9:00pm New York Comedy Club , 241 East 24^th St, bet 2^nd and 3rd) and I haven't written any new material in weeks. Plus I have another show on Saturday (9pm, New York Improv , 318 West 53rd Street, bet. 8^th and 9th) which no one is coming to either.

I’m freaking swamped. But I kinda like it. Thank God my Dungeons and Dragons game has been cancelled this week or I'd go crazy. (Yes, I realize the irony in that statement)

D&D = Dorks and the Devil

I've spoken in depth before of the prejudices against those who play video games in our culture. In some people's minds (read, assholes), gamers are all wasting their time when they should be doing their homework. If they are too old for homework, then they are peter pan-types who desparately need to grow up and/or become miserable like the rest of the country. Most of you can agree that this line of thinking is complete bullshit. Of my circle of friends, I may be the most voracious gamer but I am not alone.

But there is one game for which I receive plenty of scorn and derision. My wife Mephistopholes, god bless her, is the worst culprit. She practically holds up a cross every time I tell her that I'll be playing that night. But even my dorkiest friends shudder when I mention that I play *gasp* Dungeons and Dragons.

I don't get it.

I mean, I suppose that most of this bad reputation comes from the whole D&D backlash in the early 80s. Two suicides, 1 in 1979 and 1 in 1982, were blamed in the press on the victim's obsession with D&D. Never mind that these 2 kids were extremely sick mentally, were drug-addicts and exhibited all of the warning signs typical of suicides months before their deaths. No, let's blame it all on a game that not many people knew about at the time, that makes more sense than placing any kind of responsibility with the parents.

One of these mothers, Pat Pulling, did more for damaging D&D's public perception than anything else by forming Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (BADD), an effective propaganda machine. Of course, the tactics employed by this radical group are just as much in question as their stance against role playing games. They were thrown out of courtrooms throughout the 80s and even committed mild brainwashing of an accused murderer, Darren (not Paul) Molitor, into releasing a statement which blamed D&D for his actions. PS. I got all this from a quick Google search which brought up this page.

While BADD was eventually discredited and dissolved, the attitude of the Christian conservatives and nervous mothers across the country were irrecovably aligned against a game where the players pretend to be fantasy fighters and elves. I'm not sure how religion got mixed up into it but you need only read this Jack Chick pile of shit to figure out how easy it is to damn something you know nothing about. (The advocation of burning books in that comic is more creepy than D&D if you ask me)

Growing up in an extremely Catholic environment (I was forbidden to watch the Simpsons, MTV, Steve Martin), I was never able to play D&D as a hobby. Having been an avid reader of fantasy since my introduction to the Hobbit, I was fascinated with a game that would let me be a part of the great epic stories I was reading. I guess it was the writer in me wanting to imagine wonderful, complex worlds and create characters which would have compelling stories to tell. At any rate, my mother, being the impressionable Catholic she was, listened to all the warmongering of the above-mentioned crazies and did everything she could to discourage my interest.

I can understand my mother having a attitude predilection against D&D, my mother is nothing if not predictable, but I don't understand my recent conversations with my peers. The trickle-down effect from people like my mother to New York City hipsters is quite surprising.

Let me try to explain what exactly happens when one plays D&D, to avoid any confusion. One dude is a DM and he's the one who, in effect, writes the story. He figures out what challenges we will face over the course of an adventure. The players, which have invariably formed some kind of team like The Fellowship of the Ring and have as many disparate parts, then go about solving the mystery, defeating the monster or finding the treasure, whatever the case may be. This is done by saying stuff like, "I search for secret doors" or "I attack." Whenever something like that comes up where there is a chance for failure, a die is rolled. That's it. The players must continue to communicate, work together, and problem-solve until the goal is reached.

It's important to keep in mind that D&D is just a game. It is no different than poker, or chess, or Monopoly, or Pictionary, or fucking anything made by Milton Bradley. Sometimes there is a board or map which you can place miniatures, but that is really just an aid to help the players visualize their relative positions. The majority of the game is played in your imagination, like a book.

Which is what appeals to me about role-playing games, really. It is different from its computer or console counterparts which show you exactly where your chracter is at any given moment. Traditional pen &paper D&D forces you to imagine what the DM is describing to you, which, if he is worth his salt, can be as interesting as any novel. But unlike a book, I am able to act in this imaginary world as if I was a character.

When I talk about playing D&D with my peers, I invariably get the same response. They think it's somehow terribly uncool. "Only dorks with no friends play D&D. You don't want to associate with some pimply-faced nerds, do you?" My own Mephistopholes has gone so far as to accuse all roleplayers as gay faggots who all want to penetrate my virgin ass. Why would I want to spend my time with such losers? "Why are you such a loser?" "It's weird." "Do you all prance about in costume casting spells at each other?"

The closemindedness is somehow frightening to me. Have we not graduated past all of that prejudice when we graduated from high school? Are you all as impressionable as my Mother and the Christian right?

Let me dispell a few demons: The handful of people I've met who play RPGs in New York have not been weirdos or rapists or devil-worshippers. They have been mostly male 20-40, professionals, about 50% are either married or married with children. One works in the administration of U.S. congressman. One was a teacher in a Manhattan school for 20 years before becoming a live-at-home Dad. Two were illustrators, one just staring out and one accomplished. In short, they are kinda like me. They are on average more intelligent, better spoken, and more well-read than the kind of people I meet at my boring job full of people who "are normal."

We don't sacrifice animals while playing. There are no occult symbols drawn on the floor or demon summonings going on. There is no mind-controlling or brainwashing from death cults or homosexuals. D&D is just a bunch of guys sitting around playing a game they are all interested in.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish making my half-elf ranger.

National Fuck Challenge

This weekend, I am participating in the NFC which basically goes down like this:

• 7pm on Friday, receive a genre, a line, a prop and a character via email
  
• Write a fantastic short film
• Saturday, begin filming said short film
• Sunday, edit footage of fantastic short film, begin to panic because you only took one take of a very compelling scene in which the protagonist tells the antagonist to fuck off and the antagonist's toupee is awry
  
• Monday, slap shit together, burn a dvd, put a stamp on it and send it off to be judged by those who judge such things

All in all, it's a great way to spend a weekend. Despite the above tone, I am actually pretty excited to embark on this challenge. I've been trying to convince Savage to do one of these things (there are several such contests including the 48 hour Fim Project, NYC Movie Madness, and the 24 Hour plays) for many years. There is something great about being forced to make a movie in a such a constrained time limit. And seeing as I haven't made anything since August 2004, this is long overdue.

I'm trying to speculate what genre we are going to get. The examples are things like Sci-Fi, Comedy, Romance, Police, Superhero, Fantasy (which should be lumped in with Sci-fi in my opinion but who's counting?) and Action. We have tried to brainstorm what we would do if we had each of these genres, but what if they throw us a ringer?

Could we make a Porn in a weekend? If so, we will die trying.