Friday, May 28, 2004  

My Civilized Veneer Crumbles

At 1:21 a.m. this morning, I found myself peeing on a junction box outside a strip club in the middle of an oil refinery in Everett, listening to Tim Kaelin complain, "Goddammit! I wish this place was open. They have the ugliest girls!"

Then we loaded back into his car of indeterminate make and took a long, looping route back to my house. Kaelin turned off the car.

"Got any beer in there?" he asked.

"Nope," I said. "I think I have some Sambuca, though."

"Fuck you," he snarled as he turned the ignition and lit up a Paliament. "You should keep some beer in the house."

Then he was off, and I walked through the back door and heard the gentle whirring of the VCR, and it dawned on me that I was getting home too late to make sure that the TV was turned to the right channel - the channel specified in the very clear instructions my wife had left me - and that instead of Morrissey's performance on the Craig Kilborn show, she was in all likelihood getting an hour of whatever the hell Noggin shows at 12:30 at night.

Morning came too soon, and I have one of those very low-guage beer hangovers, a bona fide head full of zombies. No one in at the day job, thank Christ, so I can plot Kaelin's assassination in peace.

Jody Ake

My good friend and photographer Jody Ake is in a photo contest. Please vote for him.

Under the Milky Way Tonight...

(To be sung like The Church...)

Tonight at the Milky Way, I host Eskunder Boyd, Janet Cormier, Alana Devich, The Walsh Brothers, John Curtin, Eric Riley Moore (on pain pills) at 8:00. Should be a blast and a half.

Note To Self

Louisa May Alcott joke funny on blog.
Louisa May Alcott joke not funny at Spectators Sports Bar in Sanford, Maine.

Things I Never Thought I'd Say

I was going to put up a post with the same title, and the punch was going to be what I found myself saying on Friday afternoon at a CVS:

"Oh, I think there's a mistake. These nosehair clippers are supposed to be on sale."

However, my folks are in town, and Jeniphir, Jude, and I have been taking them to some historical sites. Thus, I found myself saying an even more remarkable thing:

"Jude! Stop jumping up and down on Louisa May Alcott's grave!"

Maybe the Latest Show Notice Ever

I will be performing at Nick's Comedy Stop at the Kowloon in Saugus, MA tonight and tomorrow. 8:00 and 10:00 each night. I believe I'm working with Paul Gilligan, who's hella funny.

Strengthen The Good

So look, I do my best not just to copy and paste stuff from other blogs here, but this post from the warbloggers at The Command Postis worth mentioning. Maybe I'm just a big softie since I became a dad, but this is a great way to turn something horrible into something decent.

In short, as a response to Nick Berg's beheading, they're soliciting donations to help Susan Tom's foster childred go to college:

Susan is the mother of 13 children, 11 of whom she has adopted, many of whom suffer from handicaps and diseases. Teenagers Hannah and Xenia were born without legs. Anthony has a degenerative and usually fatal skin disease. Eight-year-old Faith has disfiguring scars and no hair from being badly burned as an infant. Joe, 15, recently passed away from cystic fibrosis. Margaret, 18, helps Susan raise the family.

Send a few bucks. It'll help make the world better, and frankly, the world can use all the help it can get these days.

Freeway Blogger

Whoever this is, they officially rule:

The Freeway Blogger

Realpolitik Wrapup

Last night's show at the Milky Way was a bona fide blast. Everyone did great: Baratunde scared off the nine year old and his two mommies, Sean Lilly railed mightily on the politics of baseball, Paul Elwell stood his ground like a champ, Brian Longwell simply killed, Mandy Donovan was cute and mean, Sam Walters shared the story of his star-spangled hog, Andy O'Feisch turned 3 gin and tonics into comedy gold, and Tony Moschetto continues to crack me up harder than anyone on the planet.

I'd like to especially thank Steve Garfield for being an incredible sport about there not being a VCR to show his movie Run, Steve, Run. He'll be back on May 24 to try again.

My newfound work ethic paid off, as I worked out no fewer than six new bits. Somehow, somewhere, I've started loving comedy again. I don't know if it's the challenge of building a new night or if it's getting inspired by the Focused Four at the Boston Comedy Festival, but either way, it's FUN again.

Armchair Politics

Look, I'm just a nightclub comedian, and I went to public school, but it seems to me that if the stated purpose for going to war was to make America safer, but through mismanagement and bad leadership, the current administration ended up making America less safe, doesn't that mean that the whole thing is a failure and that the Bush cadre ought to be shitcanned stat?

Yay, Blogger!

Blogger, the blogtool I use to do this website, just rolled out some new
features. In theory, if they all work, I can send this post from email.

Also, just so you don't think I'm clogging your inbox with something so
stupid as a test post, I also think they've fixed the bug that sends
multiple posts.

Also-SHOW TONIGHT AT THE MILKY WAY! Realpolitik is back...we have Paul
Elwell, Brian Longwell, Mandy Donovan, Sean Lilly, Baratunde, and a few
short films, plus new stuff from yours truly and an idea I just had while
writing this. 8:00 at the Milky Way in JP.

Secret Admirers

Comedian, friend, and fellow drunkard Sean Lilly just sent me this email:

So last night I'm in the Wordsworth in Harvard Square shopping for my Mom for Mother's Day. I decide at one point to browse in the science fiction section. I find this really cool book full of stories in which they send Sherlock Holmes after Cthullhu and the other stuff dreamed up by H.P. Lovecraft. I open the book and find a folded up piece of paper just inside the cover. I open the piece of paper. It reads (and this is an exact quote, because I have it in front of me right now):

THE ARBITER LIVES!

BRING BACK THE GRAND HIGH COUNCIL OF ALL THINGS TRUE!

And then underneath that in parentheses:

This message brought to you by the Rebel Alliance, the United Federation of Planets, the KISS army, the last Battlestar Galatica, the Justice League of America, the Avengers, the House of Elrond, and all those who keep the candle burning. We live for the One. We did for the One.

And then underneath *that* an e-mail address to write to for more information: linalas31204@yahoo.com. And then underneath *that* a line of what I think are Zapf Dingbat characters.

But wait there's more: walking back through Harvard Square to my car, I find more pieces of paper stuck up here and there proclaiming the same message!!!! What in the blazes is this about? Has the groundswell begun, even without my approval? Did anybody see anything like this in Harvard Square recently? Or is it just the early effects of Bendii Syndrome working on me?

To whoever it is posting these...you just made my day.

Update: I just got this email from our phantom friends:

Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 11:22:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lilly Nalas
Subject: Re: To Whoever You Are...
To: Tim McIntire

You're very welcome.

But if you really want to thank me, bring the Geek
Council back.

Bring it back any place you can. Please.

Look for more flyers soon....

Your Friend,

Li Nalas

Boston Comedy Festival Redux

Just a quick update to my previous post about the BCF. Let me state, for the record, that I thought Tom Simmons, Costaki Economopolous, Danny Bevins, and Daryl Lenox are certified Funny Motherfuckers, and that anything I wrote about their having game-faces on for the contest was meant as a compliment. I can see how it might read otherwise, so I just wanted to clarify. It takes more than being funny to be successful in this business; it also takes the ability to step up and deliver when the pressure is on, and these guys did just that, and apparently consistently do that, and I envy them for it.

That is all.

Where's the Fork?

I can't even wrap my brain around how utterly fucking stupid those prison "guards" in Iraq were. I mean, forget the morality angle, which is, of course significant, but Osama bin Laden himself couldn't do a better job of recruiting new members of al Qaeda. This isn't about Republicans and Democrats, man. This is about SHIT BLOWING UP here in America. Seriously. This makes us look so bad to the Arab world that when - not if - the guys who come over here to bomb Chicago or Denver or LA or wherever, you can bet they'll have the image of that dude in the hood in their mind right before they push that button.

Do you get that, Mr. Rumsfeld? People over here are going to get blown to smithereens because you ran an organization where some dumb cracker bitch felt it was okay to screw with prisoners and TAKE PICTURES OF HERSELF DOING IT!!! Did that hosebag hilbilly forget THAT THE GODDAMN INTERNET EXISTS???

Anybody who doesn't vote for John Kerry is a goddamn traitor to this country. Bush and Co. just got a bunch of us killed...believe that.

Oh, and I'm doing shows in Connecticut this weekend.

Postmortem

So the Boston Comedy Festival has come and gone, and the Boston scene is remarkably quiet about it. In years past, people were yakking about it for at least a week afterwards. Of course, in years past, it was a much more Bacchanalian affair. Someone has a picture of Gallagher stepping on my head during last year's. For example. Chris Oake very sensibly pointed out that it took significant courage for a guy with a head that looks like a cantaloupe to even go near Gallagher.

This year, not so much revelry. Larry Lee Lewis's Blues Jam was blast, though it was retardedly underattended. In fact, I think I counted two non-Bostonian comics there the whole night. To be honest, I think the out-of-towners consider us all to be rubes...why have a blues jam where there's INDUSTRY around, man? Stupid Boston comics.

Tom Cotter won the contest, and by all accounts, that's how it should have gone. Today's Globe has an article about the show, which was apparently awesome. I tell you, I find it fascinating that Costaki Economopolis, Darryl Lenox, Danny Bevins, and Tom Simmons are all that good of friends AND all made it to the finals. There were 400 entries, and for 4 friends to make it that far together is pretty spectacular. They represented 1% of the entries and 40% of the finalists. I thought that the Someday Five group had a remarkable list of alumni.

Tom Simmons had an interesting wrap-up of the whole affair:

One quick note. I am convinced that the reason I did so well on my shows was because of my opening jokes. Each night I wrote a line that was about the venue, the show in front of me, or something to make the back of the room laugh. It made a huge difference. It won me the semi-final round and the line tonight made the difference between third and who knows. I think this was my competition to win and I didn't take it. I will beat myself up for a few days and then move on and learn from it.

I envy his confidence. In fact, all of these guys had their game faces on the whole time. Contests bring out the best in some people. Not me. I saw a lot of this at the Chicago Comedy Festival. Some comics...mostly the industry-focussed ones...really thrive in these circumstances. From what I could tell, Economopolous, Simmons, and Bevins fall into this category. I truly am jealous. When I look back at the long string of dropped balls and missed opportunities that comprises my comedy career to this point, I can see some moments when this kind of brashness would have helped me a lot. What can I say? High pressure makes me zen. These guys are going to go a long, long way in this business...and more power to 'em. [Note: edited for clarification]

If I have a problem with the BCF, it's that it's not a festival. It's a contest with some other shows that no one cares about. That's fine. I think they should drop everything BUT the contest, though. People are interested in that...comics and industry (god, I hate that name) alike. But Boston is an amazing comedy town, but that which makes it amazing was totally missing from the festival. We have mindblowing headliners (Knox, Gavin, Nardizzi, etc...) who were nowhere to be seen, and probably the most active alternative scene (Studio, Great and Secret, Milky Way) in the country, and that was absolutely underrepresented as well. If it's a contest, then it's every comic for themselves. If it's a festival, though, we have to start making it just that and showing off a little of what makes it so cool to be a Boston comic.