Top Ten Least Popular "Ask A..." Video Series On The Web

Office Overhearsion ®

Drone #1: Oh stop it dude. Yeah right, you're about as Italian as Mike [whose last name is Discenza] over there is.

Drone #2: That's pretty Italian then! (laughs triumphantly)

Drone #1: (pause during which he's thinking about it) Get outta here!

the sound of back and or knee slapping, followed by genial laughter

Drone #2: You up for falafel?

Drone #1: Duh.

Sean Crespo Will Teach You Vlogging #2

This week, well, actually last week but I'm posting it now...I will tell you the scariest, most heart-thumping of tales, and all enhanced using iMovie's "My First FX Suite." This week and every week...or sometimes the week after...

SPOOOOOKY TALES.

Sean Crespo Will Teach You Vlogging #1

Ok, so yes, I'm vlogging again, just at another site. Fascinating coincidence...a few days after I stopped vlogging at comedynet due to time constraints, Dot Comedy offered me $1,000,000 per vlog which I accepted since it allows me to pay off a tiny fraction on the interest on my student loans. I went to school in the future where inflation is just frickin nutzoid, brozos.

And yeah, FYI, Dot Comedy's financial planner is one groovy dude who can't carry decimal points. Ask him if you can borrow a few bucks and see if you don't walk away with at least ten grand yourself.

So here it is.

I Am A GIANT
The first of many from Dot Comedy's: Sean Crespo Will Teach You Vlogging

Embeds will be coming shortly.

Good on ya, Mike Daisey!

Invincible Summer fallout part two.

Several Big Shows this Week, Starting Tonight!

In addition to Drink at Work's show tonight, there's a bunch of exciting stuff coming up this week that you should know about. So check it out:

---

The Drink at Work Show
Tonight, 8pm
Rififi
332 E. 11th St.
$5

Performing:
Anthony Jeselnik
Sven Wechsler
Dan Curry
Elephant Larry

Hosted by Craig Baldo
Plus, special guest DJ, Eric Andre

Stick around for The Rob and Mark Show right after at 10pm, with special guest Andres du Bouchet

---

Pela CD Release Party
Mercury Lounge
217 E. Houston St.


Buy it Now!

---

Call backs for Montreal

Wed April 25, 9pm
Broadway Comedy Club

Thur, April 26, 9pm
Gotham Comedy Club

Fri Apr 27, 8pm & 10pm
Stand Up NY

Sat Apr 28, 9pm & 11pm
Broadway Comedy Club

---

Presented by Becky Donohue, Michelle Buteau and Sergio Chicon
Friday, 8pm - 1am
@ LOFT ELEVEN
www.lofteleven.com

336 W 37th St btwn 8th & 9th

TICKETS ONSALE NOW
$40 TICKET INCLUDES...
UNLIMITED ALL-NIGHT ACCESS TO THE EVENT
...AND OPEN BAR! THAT'S RIGHT, LIQUOR INCLUDED!

In addition to a great comedy and music line-up, DAW's Carol Hartsell is programming two blocks of short videos that will include the world premiere of the new Drink at Work film, The Quilt Story

---

The Shark Show
Saturday, 8pm
Mo Pitkin's
34 Avenue A
Free
Performing: Hannibal Buress, Anthony Jeselnik and MORE!
With special guest hosts, Drink at Work!

Presidential Candidate MYSPACE pages: this is real

That's right, people, distant-far-Right distant-presidential hopeful Sam Brownback from Kansas--the state whose motto is either "The Irrational Extremist State" or "First in Assholes"...one of those--has a myspace profile. I finally acknowledged that I had seen these politico profiles a while back but had been denying them, up until I heard two coworkers last week talking about Mitt Romney's page. At first I thought it was just a cute little gag by some myspace quacks. I guess I was just hoping.

So what does Sam have to say about his li'l old Bible-thumping, hate-mongering self? Well, according to the quote next to his profile picture, his is "The Official Sam Brownback Myspace." You tell 'em Sam! It's the Official Sam Brownback Myspace, damn it! Not the Official Sam Brownback Myspace Page. All of myspace is now Sam's apparently. And how did he manage to do that, people?

I'll tell you how: the benefits of a wrathful God and an unregulated free market working in concert, both of whom only Republicans can see apparently...kind of like an ideology-based Harvey!

Anyway, Sam describes himself as a William Wilberforce Republican, in commemoration of the 18th century British parliamentarian who made it his goal to abolish slavery. Sam commemorates Will's achievement by pushing for economic policies that would make slaves of anyone not lucky enough to be born into wealth. I'm sure he means well though. So that's something.



Check out the rest of Sam's profile, chock full of all the things you never wanted to know about someone you never thought this country would ever be dysfunctional enough to even entertain as a candidate for the executive office. And yet...here we are.

Look, some of the below profile is fabricated...I admit...but much of it isn't. And what is fabricated, really isn't that far from the truth. Think of my add-ons the same way a woman uses make-up...they're only accentuating what's already there.

THIS PROFILE MADE PRETTY BY ME:

---------

Status: Married
Here for: Networking, Friends, Hummel Trading
Orientation: Bisymmetrical (har har, just kidding, I hate gays)
Hometown: Topeka, Kansas
Religion: Very Catholic
Zodiac Sign: The Pope
Children: 350 million per ejaculation
Education: Bible study
Occupation: zealot
Favorite Circles: 2,5, and 8

INTERESTS:
General
My family, your family (especially your family), farming, your family's farming (I stand by my belief that uprooting vegetables shaped like the heads of dead presidents and celebrities is also murder), skeet shooting, salsa dancing, redefining human life as anything made of 1 cell or more, jogging, fishing, emulating Christ via tax breaks to the wealthy, basketball, fellowship groups, reading, pushing draconian domestic and foreign policy intitiatives, children.


Music
Stryper, Journey's Don't Stop Believing, Kansas.

Movies
Star Wars (I felt the Emperor was really misunderstood), Lord of the Rings (I felt Sauron was really misunderstood), Hellboy (this movie confused me and that's tough to do. I'm a Senator!)

---------
And lastly, easily the most terrifying comment I've seen in a long time on any myspace page...ladies and gentlemen...hopefully fictional but the highly potentially existent 15 year old bigot who is apparently, sadly, somehow associated with my hometown....please welcome "Boston!"
---------


Apr 21 2007 3:16P

Brownback is the man!

GAY MARRAIGE IS WRONG!!! BAN IT FOREVER!

If i could vote, i would definetely vote for you Mr. Brownback

---------
A voting age requirement is all well and good, but how about a voting IQ or, at the least, an emotional stability requirement? I'd rather let someone way too young for it vote than an of-Age cretin or zealot unbound by the gravity of simple facts. Just because you're a D student who got buggered by your step dad in the port o' john on the grounds of the 'White Supremacists For a Flat Earth' rally when you were 10...doesn't mean we should all have to suffer for it under a perpetual tyranny of the emotionally retarded and intellectually irrational. I'm sorry it happened to you. But giving the wealthy more yachts and closing our public schools isn't going to make the pain stop. Now use that personal intiative you red staters go on so much about, usually when someone else is in trouble, and GET OVER IT.


Love and bunnies!,
Sean

Tenting Tales: Hot Dog Soup

For most of my college summers, when my friends were doing resume-building internships on Wall Street, visiting strange and exotic lands or otherwise Building a Better America, I worked as a Tent Man.

Here is the first of many Tenting Tales.

Enjoy.

-----------

Hot Dog Soup

If you've had a moment to peruse the help wanted section of your local newspaper, I can guarantee you you've never seen this:

WELDER WANTED - Must be lover of humanity, selfless, dedicated family man. Hours flexible, skills optional.

Welding isn't about peace, love or harmony. It's about super-heating metal until it sticks to other metal, or at least bends. That's it. And Bill the Welder was a fucking master. Caked in metallic ash and sweat, the man proved there is no "I" in "tent" and the "I" in "awning" is powerless in the face of a million-degree flame. He was also a horrible father.

Bill was no Mikey Harvey, the most evil man to walk into the TentCo shop. No, Bill didn't have an aura about him that screamed, "watch out, drunk chick--he's gunning for you!" Bill was just really, really, really, really, really bad at being a dad.

It was almost worse that he didn't have an excuse--it wasn't like Bill was pulling a Mikey and waking up on a raft in the middle of Lake Havisu tripping his balls off on acid only to realize "holy crap, I've got two kids three thousand miles away!" And it wasn't like he was some sort of absentee dad who left the kids. Instead, he did them the ultimate injury and actually stayed around.

No one at TentCo had much to do with Bill on a daily basis, and he was just fine with that. In fact, he occupied his own nook in the tent company shop. Big Willy had his office. Roy had his four hundred square foot tent-making-platform with a sewing machine built right in. But for Big Willy's heaven and Roy's purgatory, Bill had his own fire-and-brimstone Hades in the back corner.

What a Hades it was! Bill's corner was a welder's wet dream of twisted metal, flammable gases and ill-fitting welding helmets that were great protection during our tent-pole swordfights whenever Bill had called in sick and wouldn't be there to kick our asses for messing with his shit. These occasional Star Wars re-enactments aside, though, the welding area was his.

And he worked magic, crafting custom-made awnings for small businesses, big houses, pretty much anyone who stopped to think, "what's something really expensive I could hang on the outside of my home or business to make it obnoxiously visible from the freeway?"

He was a man of few words, so when he lifted the helmet and spoke, people naturally said, "holy crap, he CAN talk!" Dirty jokes and curse words usually followed, but Bill also couldn't resist bragging whenever he'd successfully pulled his proudest parenting feat--Hot Dog Soup.

At the mere mention of this innocent-sounding meal, the veterans would shake their heads, silently praying for Bill's family and hoping against all hope that his kids were at home that very morning planning to run away that afternoon. Inevitably, the New Guy Who Wasn't Going to Last Very Long would ask the obvious question, "What the fuck is hot dog soup?"

Bill would cradle his helmet under one arm, wipe his forehead with the other, and beam with pride. "Hot Dog Soup is my kids' favorite food. Every time I get hot dogs, I boil the 10-pack for myself. When I'm done, I give the water to my kids. Hot Dog Soup! They love it!"

This usually left The New Guy Who Wasn't Going to Last Very Long a broken man. Every time, though, it put a shit-eating grin on Bill's face. Even when Bill put the helmet back on, you knew that grin was there for the rest of the day.

---

As an aside, I was particularly saddened to learn, years after my TentCo days, that there is actually a tasty comfort food that also goes by "Hot Dog Soup," which means there's a very good chance that the kids' teachers heard them talking about their "Hot Dog Soup" and thought, "Bill the Welder is the best Dad ever!"

Office Overhearsion ®

Employee #1: Hey, Gary, get over here. Look. It's Mitt Romney on Myspace.

Employee #2: Mike Romney?

Employee #1: Mitt.

Employee #2: Mitt, as in the famous oven glove?

Employee #1: I guess.

Employee #2: Who is he?

Employee #1: I think he ran for President last year.

Employee #2: Mitt.

Employee #1: Huh. Mitt.

BOSTON TEABAG PARTY

Just a quick reminder that the 2nd ever BOSTON TEABAG PARTY, the show that seeks to introduce you to the best comedians from Boston who live in New York but you didn't know they were from Boston, is happening tonight at 9pm, upstairs at Professor Thom's, 219 2nd Avenue (btwn E 13th and E 14th St.).

Our special Boston-connected guests tonight include:
BARON VAUGHN
GOD'S POTTERY
TOM SHILLUE
Plus another Minuteman Challenge!
And BEER! Lots and lots of BEER! Including $3 Beer Specials during and after the show for all us broke comedian types.

Hosted by the man with the largest head you know (size 8 1/4, kids!), Braintree, MA's own NICK STEVENS

Also, tunes and grooves a la carte from another Braintree, MA boy, DJ TANNER '88!


THE BOSTON TEABAG PARTY
"A Comedy Show in New York, from Boston with love"
Thursday April 19th, 2007
Live @ Professor Thom's
219 2nd Avenue (btwn 13th and 14th st.)
Showtime - 9pm
Tickets - $5
Info - myspace.com/thebostonteabagparty

DAW vlogs recommencing at Dot Comedy

Once again, members of Drink At Work have been bribed into vlogging. A tiny little start up named NBC asked us if we'd be up to the task. At first we weren't sure. Vlogging...woof, it's tough work, people. It's lonely work, it's poorly lit work, it's neck-craning work!

But we asked ourselves, if we didn't do it...who would? Some poorly spoken 13 year old on YouTube? Jargon-specific financial analysts on thestreet.com? That's not fair to them or to you. Who else could vlog for you then, could vlog for America?

Ze Frank?

Well, ok, maybe Ze.

Now there's web satire at its best! I can see why you'd like him. He's a pal, you know. That's right, we know famous people here. And Ze's got a proven track record of hilarious POV's and fun camera and editing work. He's also got those enormous eyes. So what's not to appreciate, right?

Well, not to speak ill of the man...but (hushed whisper) we personally heard that he feels he's mastered the form so to challenge himself he is going to start vlogging using only the language of the body...that is, (shouted proudly) Dance!

So your options, America, are singular and thus:
Go to NBC's fantastic site Dot Comedy and starting next week, enjoy the Crespo's and, at a later date, the Hartsell's vlogs.

Check out NBC's many hilarious vids and if you've time, ahem--you do if you're reading this--take note that a certain live comedy show whose name rhymes with "Vre Frink Mat Jerk Blow" has been singled out for Excellence in the Field of Comedy Stuff.

It's a very prestigious award, better than winning a Nobel, a Pulitzer, and my grade school hockey league's Most Improved Left Wingman Award (which I won twice, thank you very much) combined.

Stay tuned for more from Drink At Work's collaboration with Dot Comedy and other very webby places.

Fitzy's Wicked Pissah Webcast - 4/13/2007

This week Fitzy talks early season Sox, Yanks and continues with his blossoming love affair with closer Jonathan "Tom" Papelbon.

"Yeah, Ant, some comedians actually have a point of view..."

Thanks to Mindy for sending this to me. Comedian Joe DeRosa recently auditioned for Last Comic Standing and in this podcast he gives the lowdown on what that experience was like and quite rightly calls bullshit on the whole thing. I love this!

Cringe Humor Radio Podcast with Joe DeRosa

Kurt Vonnegut Is Dead

Kurt is dead.

I just found out.

This is what I feel like:




I'm not clever enough to say anything that would sum up this man's work, let alone his life, so I'll just crib from the Times which in turn cribbed from the man himself.

FROM THE NY TIMES article:

To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” summed up his philosophy:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”



Bye bye Kurt.

Bob Wiltfong, Sean Crespo, and red eyes...

Last week I was on a delightful show entitled Livia's Castle of Enchantment. It was a lot of fun but since it's only a half hour long show, it's paired up with another hilarious and unique half hour, Talk Show with Bob Wiltfong .

Yes, that Bob Wiltfong. So rather than wait in the PIT's foyer, I sat down with my pals and watched Bob's show. A funny, charming guy, Bob presides over an eclectic mix of personalities he interviews and plays games with. As an added layer, he also has a 20 SECOND YOUTUBE CLIP CHALLENGE.

Well looky looky, but I was the audience member selected to leave the room and make three 20 second or shorter videos. I think you'll find my opus, "Sean's Blink Party," engaging, incisive, and dare I say...piquante.

Enjoy.

Sean Crespo Is Also Only a Man

Greetings True Believers...

This weekend I visited my paternal family in Virginia. Lovely people. Great folks.

But I may as well be adopted.

Since about the age of 10, I've only ever seen them every couple of years at best. Fortunately, though we don't always keep in touch, the aloofness that can develop from this kind of distance, the kind that generally makes the heart grow not fonder simply farther, never set in. It was always "just a shame" our schedules, the stars, the tea leaves mixed in goat entrails and fortune cookies, whatever... never lined up.

Oh yes, and exacerbating that physical distance is a cultural distance. As it turns out, SURPRISE!, I'm 1/2 El Salvadorian...which of course makes them a full 1/1 El Salvadorian. Fractions are "relevanto" in all languages, compadres.

Nevertheless, I'm sure it was in fact a surprise for my Latino dad when the palest child since the Albino Norse died out popped out of my mom. I'm fully half descended from the Spaniards, and yet...there are barbershop quartets with more "caliente" than me.

So on the trip down I found myself wondering if I would ever be able to continue to maintain a deep bond with a group of people I am not only already separated from by a physical and cultural and language boundary but also...TADA!...a religious one.

That's right. Jesus in da house...their house. Not mine! I rent and my landlord is very strict about that sort of thing. And I try to respect the wishes of the big man upstairs (literally upstairs). His name is Tony.



The religious thing...I can barely get through the language barrier some days, let alone bigger questions like, "Is there a God, and if so, how long is his beard?"

Some of my relatives speak English mucho well-o, some speak English only ok-good-good, and some speak a strange version of English that to me sounds like Spanish mixed with Middle English right out of Chaucer. MidSpanglish? I'm not sure, but "archaic by mistranslation" is a fun way to put some of the word usage I hear during my visits. The disconnect is hilarious. I like to play a game with them called "Do you really understand what I just said or are you now just saying YES to everything to make it seem like you do?"

ME: So that's how I got such a good deal on my DVR. Why, are you looking to get one?

FAMILY MEMBER: Jes.

ME: Cool! Well do you want to go online with me and take a look at the different models available?

FAMILY MEMBER: Jes.

ME: Ok. So which storage size are you interested in, 80 gig or a smaller one?

FAMILY MEMBER: Jes.

ME: Umm, ok. Did you know I own 3% of Amsterdam due to a technical loophole in Dutch property laws?

FAMILY MEMBER: Jes.

ME: I thought so. I'm going to set your cats on fire then pee out the flames. That cool?

FAMILY MEMBER: Jes.

ME: Terrif. See you manana.


And it doesn't stop there.

EX: I have an aunt who has been in the U.S. most of her life now. I can still barely understand her and she me--as well as most other EOL (English as their Only Language) speakers. Every conversation is peppered with constant shouts to a better equipped English speaking family member in the room adjacent, "How woot say (insert Spanish word)?" Which is many times itself followed by a similar exclamation to yet another member in a chain of language queries. Several times in the past this circle has actually completed itself, arriving back at my aunt who then asks me the same question she just shouted to someone else but this time using English synonyms...


MY AUNT: How woot say, eh, eh...commo POOTATO bayt noot, joo know? POTATO, in de treize?

ME: Potato 13?

MY AUNT: Eh...no. No? No. Pootato up in, in, uh, er...in de branch?

ME: (unbelieving she knows "potato" but not the following) You mean an APPLE?

MY AUNT: Jes!

And then a wave of relief and happiness washes over her because we both figured out this terrible mystery that would have dogged us until the end of time...or until we passed a produce section. And that's a piece of my aunt right there. You're welcome.

Don't get me wrong, I find this charming and sweet and one of those things indicative to my particular family, though I'm sure it's a part of most families composed of first and second gen Americans. But it's strange being so damn Caucasian in these situations...stranger still since Spanish was my first language.

Again, surprise! See, I lived in San Salvador for quite a spell when I was oh-so-wee so when we came back to Framingham, my parents were sporting a brand new blonde-haired Spanish speaking butterball. Actually, I guess I was never really that wee. But wee enough, ok! It only took a year after starting school in Framingham, Mass. for me to forget my first language, to exist as if my second language had been my first and only. How did that happen? YOU GROW UP IN BOSTON LOOKING THE WAY I DO AND SPEAKING SPANISH! The Spanish kids thought I was making fun of them, the shite kids thought I was making fun of the Spanish kids...and that I was fat. So either way I was in for it. You'd forget how to conjugate in foreign languages real fast too if your ability to make friends was also on the line.

Anyway, the language aside, there's the religion to deal with, to politely bear, to refrain from debating about...I'd love to have an actual conversation with these, my closest relatives on their side of the divide, but facts play an awful big part in my life and they've taken their religious views to a relativistic extreme. They don't shove it at you at all, but it keeps our conversational potentials to mostly just that...potentials. Kineticize any of those "dangerous" topics like WHERE DO WE COME FROM or HOW PEOPLE SHOULD TREAT ONE ANOTHER or DO ANGELS FART...and you're apt to wind up in a MidSpanglish word-bog of confused rhetoric, shouting circles,and one fuming Half Cauc.*

Although, I must admit, I'm pretty sure we all agree that angels don't fart. And that if they did, it'd smell pretty good. Like cookies. Hot chocolate cookies. Delicious, moist, fresh from the celestial colonic oven chocolate cookies!

Who's hungry?

My digressed point is that if a topic is conveniently close enough in line with a literal interpretation of the Bible then they'll buy the science and we can have a very tepid conversation about it. A "Nothing about gravity in the Bible, so we'll let that be" sort of attitude. Electricity, another safe topic, is useful, so it's accepted and not argued, but what they fail to grasp, as all creationists do, is that it's the same physics informing our understanding of the behavior of electricity that has given mankind the clues which also led to the nearly unanimous acceptance of natural selection as the model for biological evolution.

It's all connected! But not in the way they'd like it to be.

The problem in talking to my religious kin about anything touching on inconvenient truths, especially regarding the factual irrelevance of Genesis, is that we can argue the details of evolution, but not its existence at this point. And they don't know the details anyway. Sorry guys. You missed the party. All the right wing, conservative Christian boutique pressings of anti-Darwinian and anti-Copernican books written by agenda-wielding semi-scientists** won't make the world otherwise.

It's frustrating enough talking to any person crazy enough to believe in talking snakes from a long lost paradise, let alone something as silly as assigning a gender to an all powerful non biological super being. God's a man, a HE, to my family, to all Christians! A dude. That kills me! Angels may not fart but God is supposed to have a beard, a throne, and, presumably, a wang? Please! This is lunacy. Man, woman, tranny...it doesn't matter...if there is a God and he/she/shemale is anything like us, ANYTHING, we were screwed before we even got started. But then, again with the tada!s, I suppose that's the idea behind original sin. It's the perfect excuse in case we fail. It's existential bet-hedging.

All that said, and as frustrated as I can get with them (and that's a pretty astounding level of frustrated we're talking about, e.g. the furrows on my brow get furrows), there's the very simple fact that these were the people who were there for me when my father accused me of leaving a demon in his house (True!) and stopped communicating with me for quite a few years. When your father is that completely nuts, you can't take it for granted that your other relatives are only slightly and selectively nuts. Again, I'm sure they pity me in a similar fashion. So be it, right guys? As long as there's peace and love.

Nevertheless, frustration and love all mixed together, there has always been that lingering doubt, that curiosity, "Can a group of people who believe so much the opposite of what I believe ever truly accept and love me for who I am, and not just for the sake of avoiding conflict?" I mean, how can they? My own father didn't. And it's not as if their beliefs lie scattershot, far from his. They're all zealously Christian, most of them don't believe in evolution--which is ok really, I balanced out that non-reality check when I told them I don't believe in cats so they wouldn't worry about my allergies in their feline-festooned house--, and they have no problem ignoring the tragic rationale most religions have provided every generation for wholesale slaughter, overpopulation, and bigotry.


Pssssssssssssssst...

You get that I'm a secular liberal, right? Good. Wasn't sure. Thought I might have to start a S.L. pride parade or something to tip you off, but it seems you're with me.

Good good good.

Ok back into the thick of it.

Regardless of our nearly polar opposite viewpoints on topics ranging from Adam to Zoology, I was shocked during this visit...we truly got along just fine. Almost perfectly! It was fantastic.

And upon consideration, I realize now that I was allowing myself to fret, simply for the sake of having something to fret about. I really should not have been surprised at their warmth. I have this same fear every time I see them but I have found time and again that, for them, family comes first, beliefs second. And I love them for that. And I need to remember it during future visits, of which I hope for many.

It's that warmth despite each conversation's potential for "crossing the streams" and ending everything right then and there. It's what I could have had with my father...COULD HAVE HAD, except for the fact that he's terrified of a belief system that is not absolute, exclusionary, and deranged. Hair shirt anyone? I'm sure Christ would be weeping lepers if he saw how my father has interpreted the gospels.

So...

Everything was swimmingly great with my family. I had a great time and reaffirmed my connection with them. And my aunt Che Che made a great lasagna, you know, lasagna, one of El Salvador's most famous dishes.

But there was one awkward moment when their creationist views came up and they tried to convince me of them, and it happens EVERY visit so I know to expect it. It's fine. A waste of time but fine. It's their attempt at shooting for the game-winning basket from the other end of the court as the buzzer goes off...a long shot but 'why not" they figure. This moment occurred was when one of my relatives informed me that there was "scientific proof of God's existence" and that they have a video tape detailing the study that announced this.

Let me tell you...I CAN NOT WAIT TO SEE THIS TAPE!

"It's scientific? This evidence?" I skeptiqueried***. "Scientific? Proof? You're trying to tell me there is scientific proof that resolves a philosophical debate?"

The look of absolute belief in their eyes, the assuredness...it's great. It's sweet. It's enthralling. "If only you would believe, everything would be so much simpler" their looks says. It's hypnotic, this firmness of stance. I'd love to partake. The desire is there in me...but I'd have to shut off the rest of my waking mind in order to accommodate that one belief. A sense of comfort is important, but it's meaningless if it comes at the expense of your sense of self. I think the Bible said it best with "what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?"

Thanks, The Bible!

Still you have to admit, it's pretty miraculous, this video. Not a one of my family has ever read any book written by a real scientist on any topic, whereas I've read several dozen, and yet...the first time they made a foray into the field...they just stumbled upon the one video, the only one, the contents and claims of which are verifiable and already peer reviewed and which prove the existence of GOD! What are the odds?

This is astounding! This is amazing!

This is sarcasm!

And this is almost how we ended that conversation.



ME: Ok, just to be sure...this evidence, this scientific evidence...is it from a scientist or is it found in the Bible?

RELATIVE: De Bible.

ME: Ah. Ok, you know that that's not then evidence, right?

RELATIVE: Well, jes and no...

ME: Oh, wait, it probably depends on the kind of Bible though, right?

RELATIVE: Jes.

ME: So was this the 80 gig Bible or a smaller one?

RELATIVE: Jes.

ME: I'll be right back. I have to go put out your cats.

RELATIVE: Jes.

ME: And to you too.



Well, close enough. Anyway, I would say this to you, my family: I love you, you're good people, and I will always be there for you, as you have been for me.

BUT...

please, please please please please please please PLEASE ...keep your god on a leash. I don't want Him pissing in my yard or digging up my flowers of reason. It'd be a real shame since they're coming in so nicely, finally, and I'd hate for them to die so young. In return I promise not to let them get into the soil in your intellectual property. Wither wither anyway, right?

And look, my people, while I don't like or agree with what you're growing over there in your garden, nevertheless, sometimes, once in a long while mind you, when I'm far from home and the wind is carrying a familiar scent, I am reminded of you and your ways and what I think doesn't come into it. I'm just remembering you. And it makes me smile.

And for that, I thank and love you.

Te quiero mucho,
Sean

PS And now in the spirit of getting along...I've found a delightful video that seems to have perfectly mixed both our value systems...well, except for the part about THOU SHALT ALWAYS KILL at the end, that is. The rest of it...perfecto!



Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
"Thou Shalt always Kill"






* My term for Half Caucasians--again World, you're welcome. I coined that phrase right here. Also see "MYSPACQUAINTANCE".

**People with legit degrees who do not however utilize the scientific method, i.e. they start with an assumed truth, usually Biblical scripture as the root, and try to find evidence to back it up, rather than starting with a hypothesis which they then try to disprove , the results of which are then open to debate and peer review...that is what real scientist do. Shucks.

*** Consider this word coined too!

What's HIS Deal?

It's a slow day, so, yeah, we're watching Deal or No Deal at work.

I won't get into why (primarily because we don't have that Baseball Extra Innings package), but rest assured that the show is making me as simultaneously depressed and amused as it does when I watch it at home...

I could blog for hours about how the show is a microcosm of every single thing that's wrong with human nature.

And I could marvel at Howie Mandel's phoenix-like rise from the celebrity ashes.

But instead, I'm here to dare to ask the question:

What's up with "that guy"?

If you've seen the show, you know the one I'm talking about.

[In case you haven't, let me get you up to speed: Deal or No Deal is basically a test of whether people can add and then divide really big numbers, compare that result with another number computed by a "banker", and make a rational decision while a wall of hot chicks stare at them and Howie Mandel taunts them.]

I typically hate to generalize, but from what I can tell, the hapless (but charismatic) contestant always seems to be joined by the same three people in that friends-and-family part of the show:

• His sibling/cousin who is psyched to be on TV and repeatedly notes that he or she has plenty of fond memories from their summers growing up
• The awkward neighbor/co-worker who clearly bought nice clothes for the first time in a long time (just for the occasion!) and is never sure what to say
• That guy

And each has his or her own strengths:

• The family member has a fantastic smile, homespun Middle American wisdom and cautious pleas along the lines of "$128,000 is a lot of money, Carl, and Suzy really needs that operation..."
• The neighbor/co-worker is great at confusing the contestant with their deafening apathetic silence, all the while shuffling nervously and wearing that concerned expression that screams, "Do these flat-front khakis make my crotch look funny?"
• "That guy"... Um... "That guy"...

OK, who needs enemies when you've got friends like "that guy"?

Don't get me wrong, "that guy" is typically the contestant's best friend in the whole world.

We're talking BFF shit here...

• All the inside jokes/personal references (think: "how sweet is the lake house gonna be with a keg-o-rator!")
• Unspoken "ohh, yeah" nods (distracting the contestant from his sister's equally silent tears)
• And easy challenges to the contestant's manhood whenever he thinks of taking the money off the table ("Arkansas boys never say die!")

And "that guy" doesn't even need to be a guy!

He can, in our modern times and/or in the spirit of gender-neutral grammar, even be a she.

Oh, the BFF content changes slightly when "that guy" is a she (although I don't know of a man or woman alive who wouldn't want a keg-o-rator at the lake house), but "that guy" is doing the same thing, regardless of his/her gender.

(As an aside, my apologies to the womyn in the audience who still take offense because I was taught proper, gender-neutral grammar. No offence intended by my Old School style. I mean, I didn't even point out how contrived the alternatives are! And I know - it's not a girls' school without men, it's a women's college without boys...)

Where were we?

Oh yeah.

Now I am certain the producers love "that guy" - s/he's (see! contrived!) exactly the kind of irrational force that can numb the able contestant's ability to divide a simple sum of unique dollar values by 13 to determine expected value.

And the audience loves "that guy" - I know I do - because he's loud, he does fist pumps, and we all know someone like him.

Hell, I've been "that guy" more times than I care to recall...

Which brings me to my point (seriously, I had one) - I would be pleased as punch if the show had a special segment whenever anyone loses (i.e., after every show) that gives a retrospective of all of the truly shitty advice "that guy" had also given the contestant at key moments in his life.

I'd TiVo it - it'd make a great drinking game, and I am sure there would be some hum-dingers, from every facet of the contestant's life!

Things like...

• "Why are you so worked up about a stupid final? I just scored a dime bag and two tickets to Iron Fucking Maiden!"
• "I'm pretty sure her boyfriend is passed out upstairs - go for it!"
• "I bet you $200 you won't order a tequila shot during that lunch interview..."
• "Come on - let's drop into this strip club before we meet the girls. Glitter washes off!"
• "I'll spot you $1000. Now put it on the motherfucking table - you can't lose with that hand!"

And those are actual examples people I already know!

[Fear not, loyal reader. My "that guy" moments will be the subject of an entire future entry after a few festive brunch beverages...]

Now, bear in mind, "that guy" gets hurt just as much as our poor contestant.

Just now on Deal or No Deal, I watched "that guy" talk a guy out of taking $150,000 (expected value $166,703.33, btw) with a plea along the lines of, "go for it! How great is that new pool room gonna be with a full bar?"

[The contestant had $500,000, $100 and $10 on the board.]

Then, just to add emphasis, "that guy" actually did say, "Arkansas boys never say die!"

Sure the contestant needed $100,000 to settle some debts and move out of his sister's house.

But "that guy" was there to remind him - pool rooms pull wool!

Our noble contestant ended the game with the $10 case.

I'm assuming he still lives with his sister (who, incidentally, served as the always-ignored family member, standing right next to "that guy" as more than a hundred grand evaporated in the opening of a case) - unless, of course, she killed him and his friend when they left the show.

But, seriously, how much does it suck to be "that guy"?

Well, I can tell you from experience.

It does.

But I can also tell you, it all made sense at the time.

Castle of Enchantment: the PHOTOS

All photos by Anya Garrett.



The Jack Palance of Comedy...Livia Scott.




The Inimitable Baron Vaughn out bards Shakespeare and collapses in a mouth-worn heap moments later after exhausting his fricatives and plosives.




Handicapable comedian Rolling Laughs takes a moment to talk about the danger of rats eating through one's spinal cord.





Dave Hill explores the lighter side of celebrity tragedies.




Katherine Bryant, Shayna Ferm, Alex Goldberg engage in hijinx, shenanigans, and tomfoolery...in that order.

Fitzy's Wicked Pissah Webcast 4/4/07

Fitzy's 2007 Red Sox Team Preview, Part II: The Pitchers.

Keith Richards snorting update

Evidently, the story of Keith Richards lacing his coke with the ashes of his dead father and shoving it up his nasal passage was a "Story lost in the usual slanting", according to Keith.



Keith says of the story: "I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were – that tight!"





Oh.





source: www.mtv.com

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Another Diatribe About Comedy...Sorry

About a year ago, while having yet another long, impassioned (and probably utterly boring to anyone else within earshot) conversation with a friend about the state of stand-up comedy in the city, I lamented over what I ineloquently termed "the indie-rockization" of the comedy audience. What my point lacked in grace it made up for in prescience. Just yesterday, I came across a nicely run blog that proudly proclaimed comedy to be the new indie rock.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with indie rock, I'm a fan of many indie rock bands myself. And I think comedians and shows, particularly those that don't yet have TV credits or industry recognition, should have a strong, dedicated fan base that actively seeks out what's new and noteworthy. What I find troublesome is the kind of audience that turns out for shows but doesn't laugh. It's the same kind of audience that turns out for bands and doesn't dance. There are shows in town that consistently pack their small rooms with attractive fans who are more interested in showing how hip they are to know about the shows than actually listening to the comics they've never heard of. And they definitely won't go to a show that doesn't already have the indie seal of approval.

In this scene, a writing credit on SNL or a never-aired pilot in LA matters more than the sweat equity that struggling comics have put into their fledgling careers. Affectation matters more than substance, and scatological humor and rape jokes are the new, "What's the deal with airline food?" No one seems to want comedy to be about anything and that's a sad state of affairs. I laughed at Mitch Hedberg a lot, but as a patron saint of comedy he doesn't really match up to Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor. I only hope that Sarah Silverman doesn't suffer an untimely death as her living legacy is already dangerously out of control.

This is one person's opinion of course. Comedy is an art form like any other and what works for me doesn't work for everyone. But there's a level of agreement in the indie-rock-comedy scene that seems to be based less on real comedy chops and more on the idea of what happened, when and where and who saw it. At this point, comedians almost have to be better party planners than they are writers and performers. They have to create a scene that's about drinking, dancing and possibly hooking up with someone semi-famous. Invite Them Up seemed to explode once they had established the idea of an afterparty DJed by the performers where you might find David Cross or Michael Showalter stopping by for a drink.

Meanwhile, other consistently great shows with a following, like The Shark Show, The Rob and Mark Show (Tuesdays at 10 in April right after Drink at Work) and the late Giant Tuesday Night, go largely unnoticed when it comes to industry buzz and still occasionally struggle with attendance. Comedy deserves an audience as vibrant as its performers and an industry that actively seeks out unique, new voices. You can't find the next great writer or performer by waiting to see who gets a deal with Super Deluxe or who has the most hits on YouTube. You have to go to a lot of shows. I'm not begrudging people who go to one show a month and therefore want to go to the one they've been to before because they feel confident that it will be good. We need those people, too. But the indie-rock moniker is meant to convey an audience that is more cunning, thoughtful and adventurous. An audience that looks for substance, not a scene. Turning out for a big show because it features all the alternative comedy stars you've already heard of is more about being "in the know" than discovering something. And, frankly, that sounds more like fashion than indie rock.

Go See Stripped Stories Tonight at Mo Pitkins!

Photo by Anya Garrett

...with naughty and silly tales on the theme of guilty pleasures
TONIGHT
Wednesday April 4th at 9pm
"Stripped Stories"
Hosted by Giulia Rozzi and Margot Leitman

With:
The Rob and Mark Show (Spike TV)
Anthony Atamanuik (30 Rock)
and producer Nichelle Stevens

Each show features a comedian, a writer or musician, and an average, everyday person (non-performer) revealing hysterically honest stories about their sex lives. The soon-to-be married Giulia and the recently single Margot will each reveal their very own juicy stories amidst some games, audience interviews and hookups... hopefully.

Mo Pitkins, 34 Ave. A bet. 2nd and 3rd
$5

Livia's Castle of Enchantment

SHOW INFO:
Livia's Castle of Enchantment
THURSDAY NIGHTS IN APRIL
8:30-9:00PM
The PIT ~154 West 29th St.
$5 Double Feature Special!
**Includes FREE admission to Talk Show With Bob Wiltfong at 8:00**


Livia's Castle of Enchantment is a brand new 1/2 hour comedy-variety experience with stand up, sketch groups and duos, musical acts and videos hosted by a different dead celebrity every week, brought back to life with the power of magic!


THURSDAY, APRIL 5th
SEAN CRESPO
SHAYNA FERM
DAVE HILL
BARON VAUGHN
With Special Guest Host JACK PALANCE
Interperative Dance Provided by JOCELYN SOULET
Narration and Backup Vocals by ERIK SEIMS

From the "OH MY F***ING GOD" category...

Keith Richards says he once snorted his Dad.



That's it. We're done. The internet's over. Nothing can beat that.



Nothing.

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