Donald Glover of Derrick, the Shark Show and Tom Shillue, and Sara Silverman

I went to the Creek and the Cave last night with my friend Baron Vaughn to check out the new work-out show the DERRICK guys are putting up Sundays weekly starting in September. Good time, funny guys. Anyway, the one thing I had forgotten however was the circumstances in which I first met Donald. Most of you are aware I was a manny for a few years, but did you know that Donald was also a babysitter way-back-when?

TADA!

That's right. "His" kids and "my" kids had play dates all the time. He had a funny story about it to tell and for a few minutes last night I became that guy in the audience who laughs too loudly at something because he relates too much to it. If there'd been an old-school steel man in the audience and Donald started talking about the German steel embargo of the 80's, I'm sure that guy would have had a similar reaction.

(Please note I have no idea if there was in fact a German steel embargo, but you must admit it has the ring of a real event.)

Last night was such nice romp through memory lane, I woke up today already thinking about past shows I'd been on that were notable. And to this day, the Shark Show holds my top MEMORABLE SHOW position.


Photo courtesy of Mindy Tucker @ WITHRESERVATION.COM


The Shark Show was Nick Stevens, Gabe McKinley, Ari Voukydis, and Dan Gaba. All hilarious, all great guys. One of my favorite shows to hang out at, to perform on, and after a particular evening, even to bomb at. For not even the wily comedy ways of the Shark Show members could protect their performers from each and every audience. Sometimes, you gots ta git yer hurt on to grow.

TO WIT!

There was a Shark Show a couple years ago with the most bizarre audience selection possible, given the alternative comedy venue the show took place in as well as the fact that the Shark Show guys didn't advertise widely since word-of-mouth led to full houses most nights.

Nevertheless, somehow sixty retired firemen, cops, their wives, AND THEIR CHILDREN found out about it and took three buses down from Yonkers JUST TO SEE THE SHARK SHOW. I talked to one of them after the show to confirm all this. They weren't on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for any reason except to see this comedy show they'd somehow heard of. What's stranger is that no one could remember where'd they'd first learned of the Shark Show. It's given this audience, in retrospect, a sort of ghost ship aspect to them in my memories, making me wonder if the supernatural had been involved. Were they a ghost-audience from rowdier days doomed to haunt comedy rooms around the city for all time, ruining the shows, unraveling the wills of talented comedians, and traveling in their ghost-buses back and forth to ghost-Yonkers and getting shitfaced on ghost-Pabst all the while?

We may never know. All I can tell you is that this show put some hair on my chest. It was brutal...but hilarious.

The comics that night were me, Chelsea Peretti, Sean Lynch, and the frigging inimitable Tom Shillue. The moment the show began, you could barely hear the performers from all the...well, I can't call it heckling since the comments from the audience at one point actually BECAME the show so let's call their comments Word Barfs.

Word Barfs drowned out everything most of the show. I got on stage and within seconds a 14-year-old WITH THE HELP OF HIS MOTHER had covered me with carnival spray-foam.

Photo courtesy of Mindy Tuck @ WITHRESERVATION.COM

That's me. That's my chagrin, in full bloom, or rather full-blown. That's a more appropriate phrase, as dealing with this audience was like succumbing slowly to an unbeatable disease. (There was more foam coming but Mindy managed to capture this magical moment mid-spray.)

Lynch, Chelsea, and I all did admirable jobs silencing the Word Barfing for various stints of time. I do not include one parrticular gentleman and his wife, who both spent the entire evening just shouting the words "Cock 'n' balls!" They couldn't be stopped by any of us. They were...beyond our healing gifts.

HOWEVER...there were two events that brought the show back to some kind of sanity for brief periods.

The first came halfway through the show. The audience was chanting something like "Beer BEER BEER!" interspersed with "COCK 'N' BALLS." A Shark Show sketch was coming to an ignominious end, when I could practically hear Gabe McKinley in the back room mentally tell himself, "Fuck it," as he decided on an unscheduled appearance by 9-11 Man.


Photo cred uncertain here. It's from Gabe's myspace page though.


You have to understand the raw ballage it took to do this. It's an audience comprised ENTIRELY of retired "heroes." Gabe KNEW they were not going to get the piece and still he went out and threw down. That, to me, is the best comedy has to offer, hilarious, immediate, relevant, dark, dangerous, and still, somehow...silly.

Now, 9-11 Man can be a tricky character with even a good audience. The piece skirts that line between brilliantly honest and callous. It's an unimaginably funny piece if you "get it" but if you don't, you're left wondering why this man wearing a baseball cap embossed with a giant war eagle is making fun of a tragedy. He isn't though. That's the point--he's mocking the romanticizing of a tragedy as much as the self-righteous, self-pitying crowing of rednecks, townies, and hate mongers the nation over, none of whom had anything to do with or lost anyone in 9-11. If you see that, the character's genius. If not, well, eep!


Gabe at the Drink At Work Show performing yet another tortured, nearly bottomed-out character, the crossword puzzle editor of the NY Times who's recently been cuckolded. NOTE: not sure about photo cred here either.


At any rate, Gabe did his thing as 9-11 MAN and shut that crowd up for a good long time. Shockingly, a couple of the audience members really liked it. But these people were a force of nature and nothing would hold them for long.

Cue the next comic, more rowdiness, eventual anarchy re-emerges on the scene.

CUT TO: Tom "Shut Up You Fucking Gorillas" Shillue

For those of you who don't know Tom very well, he is a gentle, well-spoken, kind man who's always available to perform, or just to talk, whatever. He's also an amazing comedian, a fact that somehow has never gone to his head.

Here is he talking amiably to none other than DAW's own Carol Hartsell (ne Fartsell).

Again, not sure who to credit here.

Now Tom isn't the kind of comic who shits on his audience when his set's not going well. Actually, you know what, I don't know if that's true. I've honestly never seen Tom not have a great set. Never mind. Maybe he is that sort of comic.

Whatever the case, that evening, something came undone in Tom on stage, or was let loose. And it was glorious. Tom began his set in good faith, giving the audience a chance to be an audience, but within a few moments it was clear where things were headed if something wasn't done. That's when it happened. TOM SHILLUE SHUT DOWN THE TOWNIES for good.

"Shut up you fucking Gorillas! What are you even doing here? Go back to your cages and throw some feces at each other in the privacy of your own banana trees."

Photo courtesy of Mindy Tucker @ WITHRESERVATION.COM


That is what he said. And that is the refrain I sometimes hear in my head when I see Tom on stage. For every great story he tells on stage, I like to imagine there was a moment like the above that helped forge that tale into the pure comedy gold it is. Tom Shillue spent the next few minutes ripping into the audience in the meanest, funniest way possible. No one was spared, not the wives, not the kids, not the heroes. And at the end of it, he walked off to whoops and hollers of gratitude!

Unbelievable. He actually beat them at their own game. All the audience wanted was to be put in its place. That night was comedy magic. Between the Shark Show guys, Tom Shillue, and 9-11 MAN, I can honestly say that I will never forget.

Oh. Sorry.

Ok, so lastly but not leastly...

Photo courtesy of Mindy Tucker @ WITHRESERVATION.COM

Hey look, it's Lizz Winstead. You know, the woman who created the Daily Show, where she just happened to hire a young man named Stephen Colbert. Huh. Odd, that. And look who she's standing next to! Why, it's just l'il ole Sean Crespo reading a character in a piece Lizz wrote and is performing at Carol's and my l'il ole DrinK At Work Show.

"But wait!" you say. "That photo is from a while back. Is there a more current, but high profile project that involves you, Lizz, and even Carol Hartsell (ne Fartsell) that I can come to?"

Funny you should ask.

SHOOT THE MESSENGER is heading off to Minnesota to mock, mangle, and moon the Republican National Convention for three shows at a beautiful and recently renovated 400-seat theater. We'll be there alongside the Daily Show and the Colbert Report doing the Lord's work.

ASIDE:Congrats to fellow Emersonian Opus Moreschi for winning the writing gig there. He's moving from LA to NYC this week I believe. Welcome aboard, Opus. You made the right choice, coming to New York. Yes you did.

And if you happen to be in the area and want to see the show, hurry and buy your tix soon. The shows are almost sold out. Here's the info:


SHOOT THE MESSENGER @ the RNC

From September 02, 2008 7:00 PM
Through September 04, 2008 7:00 PM

Location
The Parkway Theater
4814 Chicago Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55417

Info Line: 612-823-1492

A fourth show may be added, but it's not certain yet. And hey, if you can't make it to Minnesota, STM will be back in late September/early October at its NYC home the Green Room, Mondays at 8pm, for twelve measly dollars.

Need further enticement? How about this...We'll be having BILL MOYERS and SARA SILVERMAN on as guests once we return from our holy pilgrimage to the land of lakes. Sounds good? Good.

SEE YOU THERE.

(Watch the STM site for postings of new vids while we're on hiatus from live shows. The promo we're shooting with Silverman tomorrow afternoon should be up within a week or so in fact. Plus there will be a round of brand new promos for many of STM's characters that we'll be rolling out slowly over the next month. Stop by and pick some STM today!)