A month gone by

Been busy lately. On May 17th, I left for a weekend with the boys in what will be known as the Greenville Drive. For details of our mass exodus to the southland, go here. He's got quite a few posts on the trip, make sure you check them all out. I will be adding pics and maybe even video here eventually. I filled up a 2 gig card of pics and I still had to delete some of the obviously out-of-focus in order to get the Cos. That's right, I said Kevin Costner.

Immediately after I got back from staying in dirty motel rooms in the bible belt, I began recreating a dirty motel ... ON STAGE! Good friend, Oliver Butler, and his fellow theater auteurs from the Debate Society have successfully staged their third play, The Eaten Heart. I humbly spent a few days banging together some moulding, hanging masking and stapling scrim to itself. The set is badass, the sound and the lighting is spot on, and the characters Paul (like naked Larry who believes he's invisible because he's wearing Magic Underpants) and Hannah (crazy woman who sings lounge acts castrating her dear husband) create are scintillating. I *heart* the Eaten Heart.

I received a wonderful shallacking from the sun on Memorial Monday. Mephistopholes and I loved our little jaunt to Jones beach, until the sun went behind the concrete clouds and threatened never to return. "Come back Father Sun!" we beseeched from sticky, lotioned faces. Come back he did, as he always does, and his vicious rays punished us for our doubt in him. Both of us are burnt, though (despite her name) Mephistopholes is worse. Her midsection is now a crayon-perfect burnt umber. Tasty.

Gotham Next Tuesday!

Going to be at Gotham in a couple days.

No crazy preambles this time around. I've run out of funny. I'm saving it up for that gig.

See you there.


Gotham, 23rd bet 7th and 8th
Tuesday, May 22nd
8:00pm$12 cover, 2 drinks
Call 212-367-9000 to reserve

You decide!

I broke down and got some headshots with my wife. It's come up a few times, random people asking me for headshots. It gets a little disconcerting not having anything to give them, especially when dirty bums stop me for a quarter and a headshot and resume.

My wife, who may or may not be named Mephistopholes, has been unhappy with the digital shots she got a few years back. She went with a rising star in the actor headshot biz, one Debra Lopez. The pictures aren't BAD, perse, but Erin used to get a crapload more auditions/callbacks from her old pictures. One could say it's because they are now color, or because they had to shoot inside because it was raining on the day of her shoot.

She bandied about getting new shots, and I thought maybe we could kill a few birds with a couple of cameras. So yesterday morning, at the buttcrack of 10am, we went to see David Cross. Yes. He's very funny... No... He's voting for Obama... Ok... I don't know man... I'll see, but I'm not making any promises.

Sorry, I meant DAVE Cross. He's the photographer who took Erin's shots back in 2000 and incidentally, shot our wedding and made a dandy yearbook style album of it. Dave oozes talent. The first shot he took of me made me look fucking great. He's good, he's good.

He also had some choice words for little Miss Debra Lopez. I don't want to start a photographer fight, but he said when he used to do reproductions years ago, he would refuse to reproduce anything she shot. They were that bad. When she started, Debra knew nothing of photography, she literally picked up a camera and threw it at people. She had no clue.

The great part about digital photography is I get to pass the savings on to you, my loyal readers. Take look at the following link. Those are the 10-20 best shots he took of me yesterday. Leave a comment on which one you think should be my Headshot.

http://www.reproductions-online.com/RPU/hfaj/gtn18/fave1178802967268_01.html

I need your help. I have no taste, perhaps you can tell from my previous headshot?

WOW bits

Most of my day is still eaten up by the menace which is currently plaguing 8 million people all over the world. World of Warcraft. I recently coerced, with 2 parts mindless reiteration, 1 part marijuana, my buddy back into the addictive gameplay of his Human Warlock, Savagei. Like Christopher Moltesanti to a freebase session, he has gobbled up all the new Burning Crusade content with reckless abandon. My main is stalled at 65 while he's been at 70 for weeks. I just hope he doesn't shoot me when he realizes that he hasn't slept in four days and still hasn't bothered to change the pants he shat when he and his guild finally bests Illidan the Betrayer in the Black Temple next month. This resurgent junkie behavior may or may not be why he hasn't blogged in two months and doesn't have a job, but who am I to judge? Judy?

I play when I can, when I'm not doing comedy or playing basketball or at my weekly D&D game. But most of my time in front of this here cubicle computer is still spent researching the little bits of lore at wowwiki.com or searching for new addons at wowace.com or wowinterface.com. A couple of months ago, I channeled my dorkosity into writing an article about the addon community and the very real possibility of mod authors burning out on what is a very volunteer project. It went up at the Escapist last week and I'm proud of how it came out.

There have been rumblings of a big announcement from the Boys at Blizzard. A new game is in the works set in the Starcraft universe. For those of you who don't know, Starcraft was an RTS made in 1999 and is the greatest computer game ever made, if you are a Korean. Seriously, this is an American game which has become a NATIONAL FUCKING SPORT in Korea complete with rockstar gamers and huge televised matches with thousands of screaming fans. Most assumed that Blizz's new game was the much anticipated Starcraft 2, a sequel which would give them a break from the MMO juggernaught of WOW and a chance to get back to their RTS roots. But today, quite a few channels link to this story, it seems that Blizzard is in fact going to announce a new Starcraft MMO at its third Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea on May 19th. The article linked above mentions "well-placed" Blizzard sources. It's anybody's guess who the fuck that is but my money's on this guy.

World of Starcraft, eh? I'd buy that for a dollar. Many people assume that it will be a clone of the WOW gameplay but I think a highly polished space economic sim like EVE Online or the crafting of SW Galaxies is the niche MMO space Blizz will be aiming at. They don't want to compete with themselves, do they? They already have LOTRO to do that.

I stumbled upon a gallery with screenshots from the alpha phase of WOW's development. It's pretty cool to see how the game changed, most of the models were replaced and the UI was redesigned several times it seems. But I wish I could find this in the game still. "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

And finally in the file labeled "Why the fuck not?" Blizzard has partnered up with Visa to bring the American consumer the most needless tie-in product ever conceived by humans: The World of Warcraft Visa Credit Card. Was it really necessary to poison every transaction with the taint of your WOW obsession? I can see nerds everywhere saying, "Sure, put it on my WOW card so I can rack up gametime." Really?


Really?




I applied the day it came out...

Hosting @ The Living Room, 5.11.07

Hey guys, I'll be hosting one of my favorite rooms in the city on Friday. The Living Room does a fun job of blending chai tea with real human tragedy. And by tragedy, I mean rapings, murderings and pillagings by rampaging(s) Mongol hordes.

Living Room
Postmark Cafe, 326 6th Street, bet. 4th and 3rd aves.
In Park Slope!
This Friday, 5.11.07! 8pm!
Free! Punctuation! Coffee!

Laugh Factory, 5.12.07

I will be laughing all the way to the Laugh Factory this weekend. For those of you who don't know, the Laugh Factory is where the capitalist pigdogs manufacture merriment and goodwill and sell it at exorbitant prices to the hard-working classes of the Third World.

It's also where Kramer got in trouble. But that was in LA. This is the New York sister club which is very close to all the titty bars on 8th Ave. But you know what they say, location, location, masterbation.

Laugh Factory
303 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036
7:30pm show!
12 bucks, 2 drinks!
Reserve: 212 942 9680
Don't buy those crazy tickets on the street, they tell me those "do you like comedy?" tickets won't be good for this show. Which of course means they hate comedy.

Cadaver Synod

You come across some crazy shit on the interwebs. I was just browsing around on that wikipedia this morning, and stumbled upon on article describing the scene pictured here. Apparently, in 897 A.D., a pope dug up the dead body of his predecessor, dressed it in papal robes and put the cadaver on trial. Pope Stephen (the new pope) had deacons stationed near the throne who would mutter the correct (guilty) responses to the new Pope's questions. The dead dude was found guilty, stripped of his papal vestments (which I presume were just put on him a few hours before), and then buried, only to be taken out of the ground again and thrown into the river Tiber.

This was all politcally motivated, I gather. There were several warring factions in Italy at the time and the Papacy was used as a tool to gain power. But seriously, who thinks digging up a body and having a mock trial is a good idea? Why not just give a speech damning the last guys actions, or even moving the body to a place with less prestige than the Basilica? Fuck it, why even bother with the whole religious charade and stop bothering people about it?

I know what Christians like my dad would say if I ever brought this up to him. He'd say you can't judge the present church or question the existence of God just because some awful things were done in the past. My response to that is, why the fuck not? These popes were crazy. According to dogma, they are supposed to be the corporeal link to God. Does that mean God condones digging up corpses and having a puppet show? No. It means the whole thing is a fallacy.

And I still can't understand why so many people fall for it.

Hard-Hearted Hannah

The play was set in the twenties, the roaring variety. It was fun to craft a play based on who I had available and the crazy criteria they threw at me. Rehearsing a play I just wrote in one of the actress's small studio (we're talking 8x10 here people) in the low-income housing built in the old Times Square Hotel is something I'll remember for a while. As I will also remember watching them perform it just a few hours later. They did the best they could with the difficult twenties slang, and the time they had to memorize it, but my god, it's hard to watch people viciously paraphrasing your shit just to get through the scene. But they ponied up, and finished with gusto. I'm proud of having done it.

The title is based off a Jazz age song most famously sung by Ella Fitzgerald. The play was a bit based off of it and I liked being able to use something to frame the idea. Of course, the sound cue got screwed up at the end so nobody heard the dang song but whatever. Here it is, you can listen to it now.

Fries are up!

Emerging Artist’s Theatre Presents:

FAST FOOD

Six Short Plays in Twenty-Four Twenty-three Hours

Written by

David Bell

Kevin Brofsky

Emily Mitchell

Gregg Pasternack

Greg Tito

Kathleen Warnock

Directed by

Paul Adams

Marc Castle

Mark Finley

Derek Jamison

Tzipora Kaplan

Rasa Allan Kazlas

Starring:

David Bishop

Christine Bruno

Roberto Cambeiro

Tracee Chimo

Glory Gallo

Brian Louis hoffman

Peter Levine

Stacy Mayer

Bill Reinking

Jackie Sydney

Staci Sweeden

And many more…

May 5th at 7:00pm
Theater 5, 311 West 43rd Street, 5th floor
For reservations, email EatTheatre@aol.com

or call 212 247 2429, or visit www.eatheatre.org.

Tickets may also be purchased in person on the day of the performance

Only $10 as a donation to Emerging Artists

Play update

So I'm here in the office of EAT awaiting my play assignment, surrounded by lovely catty theater people. They are busy gossiping about actresses I don't know who can't sing but are on Law and Order.

I'm home. Home.

The theater, the theater...

Even though I've been focusing on the comedy deal the past few years, my roots are in the crazy new york off-off-off-broadway theater scene. And even before I moved down to the city, I was steeped in theater all through high school and college. Some of my favorite memories involve lightning choreography sessions for Herod's number from JCS, writing obscene graffitti all over the set of Oklahoma and staying up for 36 hours straight building the set at Ivoryton Playhouse.

And this week, I'm bringing the theater back. This week, I will turn back into a theater dork. I will be quoting Monty Python and obsessing about gel pens with overweight stage manager chicks. I will be carrying around lekos and flicking my gerber. I will be slamming doors people and I will be a prima donna. I will be in black face.

The Decameron
Thursday, 5.3.07 @ 7pm
136 2nd Ave. (Betw. St. Marks and E9th)
I am working with my old friend, Oliver Butler, on making his company's new play get up on stage. The company is called The Debate Society, the play is called The Eaten Heart and it boasts the best promotional photo I've seen in years. They are holding a party/performance/fundraiser tomorrow and, not to meld worlds a little too much, there are quite a few comedians on the bill like Mike Birbiglia and Christian Finnegan. See you there.



Select Talent Showcase, with MC Julianne
Thursday, 5.3.07 @ 9:30 – 11:30 pm.
Broadway Comedy Club
318 W 53rd Street, b/w 8th 9th Avenue
Also on Thursday, I will be reuniting with my wife, Mrs. Morelli. Julie Giragosian, a high school classmate, actually is a performer and comedian here in the city and I HAD NO FUCKING IDEA. Well, I do now, and I will be busting out of the fundraiser to perform there. Cover is cheap, booze is flowing, and I will be dancing to the tune of "I Don't Kno How To Love Him."



Fast Food
Saturday, 5.5.07 @ 7pm
Emerging Artist Theatre
311 W. 43rd St, 5th Floor Between 8th and 9th Avenue.
The theater which ran my marathon comedy sessions last month is holding a timed playwriting festival. I'm a playwright, I get a few criteria on Friday night and I have to write a play in 12 hours. Then a director and actors rehearse it and it goes up on stage at 8pm on Saturday, a mere 24 hours after I got the assignment. Sound like a good time? It is. What's better than watching disasters? You can't take your eyes off 'em. So come to EAT on Saturday night to watch my train wreck and 6 other masterpieces.