July 18, 2006

Bright Eye-dea, guys…

Working Script for the Turnaround Skit

This is the schematic to an anti-drug skit meant to be performed to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler

* Druggie: The main character. For some reason, the skit works best if the Druggie is female.
* Friend #1: The friend who stays.
* Friend #2: The friend who leaves.
* Friend #3: Optional, if you have enough people. The friend who doubts.
* Drugs: 3 to 10 of the remaining people are Drugs. While their appearance is inconsequential, the best effect comes from a “Chorus Line” of many different appearances. There must be at least 3 people to play Drugs.
* Trees: All of the remaining people are Trees. They form a motionless, emotionless backdrop for the rest of the skit. You can eliminate the Trees if you don’t have enough people.

I love the judgement implied in the main character being called “Druggie.” And I love the line “You can eliminate the trees if you don’t have enough people.

And I love some of the other lines of this taken out of context:

Tips
Here are a few useful tips for performing the skit.

* The absolute minimum number of Drugs is three. In this case, you need to make a total of 6 signs, and have each Drug wear one on his or her back and one on his or her front. Then, once the Druggie has taken a Drug’s first sign, the Drug moves the other sign around to his or her back, turns back around, and the Druggie makes another trip along the line. I would suggest doing this if you have less than about 5 Drugs.

* Having more than 10 Drugs can throw off the timing in the skit and make it “feel” long as well.

Like most 7-minute skits, I wish it was shorter and I wish it wasn’t called a skit. But that’s just the sketch comedian in me talking (Many of us in sketch comedy are irritated by the word “skit”. It’s not rational, but it’s a fact.)

Anyway, basically, what I’m saying is…COMING SOON TO A PERFORMANCE OF Dances with Wolfshirts NEAR YOU!

If this skit leaves you with reservations about drugs, then at least this link will leave you with reservations for the show.

Posted by Nate Kushner at 05:25 AM | Comments (125) | TrackBack

July 04, 2006

Warmest Regards…

One of my favorite stupid curiosities about history is the REGARDS ring. This was apparently a very popular model of engagement ring to give in the Victorian era.

It’s a ring with these jewels across it in this order: Ruby, Emerald, Garnet, Amethyst, Ruby, Diamond, Sapphire.

It spells “regards.” As in “I regards you, darling, will you marry me?”

Ruby-Emerald-Garnet-Amethyst-Ruby-Diamond-Sapphire?
More like Ruby-Emerald-TOPAZ-Amethyst-Ruby-Diamond-Sapphire!

I am proud to say that I have wasted our 100th blog post on this.

Dances with Wolfshirts, though. I mean it. Come and see our show, because it’s shaping up really nicely. Reserve for it here. 8 performances, so there’s no excuse.

Posted by Nate Kushner at 08:54 AM | Comments (132) | TrackBack

May 10, 2006

Overhearditude.

One of my overhearings of this past weekend has made it onto Overheard in New York, which you should be reading every day if you don’t already.

You can read it there, or maybe I’ll just paste it down under here. Overheard gave it the headline “What do you expect in a comic shop?”

Friend #1: There’s a virgin.
Friend #2: What?
Friend #1: There’s a virgin.
Friend #2: What?
Friend #1: There’s a Virgin record store out by Times Square. We should go.
Friend #2: Yeah.

—Midtown Comics, 40th & 7th.

Thanks to Sean Kelly for being with me in the shop, and confirming with me that I had heard what I thought I heard.

Come to UCB on Monday. It’s going to be a hot setlist, full of surprises. This edition of SPANK also features a solo show by Ahna Tessler.

That’s AWOK at SPANK, Monday May 15th at 8 PM UCB Theatre 307 W. 26th St, by 8th Ave. Tickets are $5 and seats can be reserved here.

Posted by Nate Kushner at 03:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 20, 2006

Welcome, Raider Readers!

We have just received a very nice link from The Raider.net for A Week of Kindness and the Last Crusade, which they’ll be counting as an Indiana Jones fan film (which is how we hoped it would be perceived anyway.)

Anyway, that site is an interesting place to visit if you want to geek out about Indiana Jones 4 speculation. (Which you do, cause it’s going to be awesome when and if it happens.)

Thanks for the link, and conversely, raider readers, I hope you guys take a second to look around on this site too. We have some great content that has nothing to do with Indiana Jones at all.

Posted by Nate Kushner at 10:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 09, 2006

Artist. Genius. Funny.

I feel like I just got a piece of my youth back. I say that because someone has taken it upon themselves to podcast old archives of the Mister Mark Show. I urge you all to download a couple of these and have a listen, but be warned, you will either love this or hate this.

I grew up in Bethlehem, PA, and Mark Klee was a radio DJ in neighboring Allentown. Every Friday afternoon for years and years, he would be in the Friday afternoon 1:00 PM spot on WMUH, and for two hours, he’d play some strange music that I liked, and a ton of strange music that I didn’t care for at the time, but I probably would now. But the music wasn’t the point of the Mister Mark Show.

The point was that in between, and often on top of, these crazy songs, Mister Mark would bust out the most batshit crazy funny monologues you have ever heard in your life, the majority of which were spoken and written in a style more befitting public service announcements, and were often mixed in with the legitimate PSA’s that Mark would read as a part of being on a public radio station. Por example:

Parents, warmer weather can mean danger for your allergic child. Bees and wasps means painful stings for many, but for allergic kids, it can mean a life-threatening trip to the hospital. Wolves and bears mean powerful bites for the unlucky, but for allergic kids, it can mean a life-threatening diagnosis from a doctor. King Kong and Godzilla mean destruction for Tokyo, but for allergic kids, they can mean puffiness, rash, fever, and loss of appetite. Protect your kids by moving out of high-monster areas, and into the peaceful life on a houseboat. Houseboats are inexpensive, convenient, and secure. You’ll be safe from gophers too. Pick up the phone and call the Coast Guard for an opposing view. The Coast Guard says…stay on land. You decide. It’s the Mister Mark Show…

That wasn’t even the best of them, and his delivery makes it even better. The underlying philosophy of the program seemed to be: “What if War of the Worlds was on the radio all the time? (Not my words, that’s a quotation from a friend of his that you can hear in the hour-long special tribute that makes up the first episode of the podcast. The rest of the episodes are 2-5 minutes.)

Now, it wasn’t all A-material. But it was still remarkable, to me at least, that anybody could write 20-30 minutes of monologue every week and have 12-15 minutes of it be fantastic. Most stand-up comics have to throw out almost everything they write, and even the best of them are left with only about 10 usable minutes of material per year. And he broadcast most Fridays for what I’d been led to believe was more than 20 years.

I discovered him in the summer after I graduated high school, and so my time enjoying Mister Mark was limited to the summer before leaving for college, and my first summer back, and only when I could wrestle control of the radio away from my co-workers at whatever summer job it happened to be.

Mister Mark (That’s what his friends called him) was also a visual artist, a musician, and a playwright, and a musician, and he was considerably accomplished at all of these, at least to the extent one could be in that local scene. Mr. Klee unfortunately killed himself in the spring of 2001 with a handgun he’d purchased a year prior. After his death, I had also found out that he had played Krapp in a great production of Krapp’s Last Tape, by Samuel Beckett, which I’d seen before I knew who Mark Klee was.

Anyway, he was a talented man, pretty much universally loved by everyone who knew him, and it’s only right and fitting that someone is finally making available his monologues. I know I personally had been hoping for something like this since his death, going so far as to search for it often in the years since. Anyway, so I hope you guys enjoy this. When I discovered Mark, I was definitely already on the way to becoming the comedy nerd I am now, but without a doubt, my short time with his show was a swift kick in that direction. Also, in a minor way, it probably planted the seeds of me becoming a Brian Eno fan. I have other sides of my being, but mostly, just the clown on one shoulder and Brian Eno on the other who argue about what I should do in matters of conscience.

Also, happy New Year, cause we haven’t posted in a while. There’s videos and things coming soon.

Posted by Nate Kushner at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2005

Mike, Dan, Erica…take this test.

via Dead Frog and Elephant Larry, here is a pseudoscientific way to test where our senses of humor lie. You guys take this one too. On principle, I don’t usually endorse these quizzy things, cause they’re annoying, but this one’s a good one. I am personally prouder of my darkness percentile than my darkness score.

the Wit (76% dark, 26% spontaneous, 15% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you’re probably an intellectual, but don’t take that to mean pretentious. You realize ‘dumb’ can be witty—after all isn’t that the Simpsons’ philosophy?—but rudeness for its own sake, ‘gross-out’ humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it’s also the best, in my opinion. You probably loved the Office. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais The 3-Variable Funny Test! - it rules - If you’re interested, try my latest: The Terrorism Test

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 96% on darkness You scored higher than 7% on spontaneity You scored higher than 5% on vulgarity

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman

Posted by Nate Kushner at 02:42 PM | Comments (2)

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