Saturday, September 29, 2007

Finally, Something Interesting

I have to apologize to all 4 of you for my lack luster blogs as of late. It's not really my fault, it's fates fault. Fate has seen to it that my life has been pretty boring the last couple of weeks, so send fate an angry e-mail when you get a chance.

The dry spell is officially over, because last night was awesome!

Let me back up a bit, Nancy told me a while ago that the opening night movie at the New York film festival was going to be The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's new film. The New York film festival is a pretty big festival and it happens to be run by Lincoln Center, where Nancy has worked on and off for the past 5 years. Nancy had given free passes for the event she produced this summer to the woman that runs the festival, so she e-mailed her and asked about tickets to the opening night.

We never heard back from her so we figured it was dead in the water. On thursday we get an e-mail from her that says she has 2 tickets for the movie if we wanted them, not free though, those bitches were 40 bucks each. We buy the tickets and Nancy says she wishes we could get tickets for the after party. She worked her magic and scores us 2 tickets to the after party, which is black tie, open bar, free food, live band, and being held at the Tavern on the Green.

We had bought some skirt steak this week and were planning to make fajitas Friday night. The movie didn't start until 9pm, so we thought we could make them and have plenty of time to get to the theater. We were using this recipe we saw on a Food Network show. It involved a homemade marinade, that the steak had to soak in for an hour, so it took a tad longer than we antisipated. We finally plopped the meat on the red hot grill in the kitchen. Immediately our apartment was filled with meat smoke. The smell fused to our hair and flesh. All nite now we would have to sport Calvin Kleins new fragrance, "Steak Fajita". I guess there are worse things to smell like. We made the meal, scarfed it down, got dressed, and hopped on the subway.

We arrived in plenty of time and made out way to the theater. As we approached the theater my wife says, "Oh look, it's Dan Akroyd". I knew who she meant and sure enough two feet from me, was Bill Murray. He was entering the theater as pictures were taken. We walk in and found our seats. The festivities began with a 10 minute long Wes Anderson short film. It starred Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman. It was basically a prelude to the actual movie. It was really good and you get to see full on Natalie Portman ass. Sweet.

After the film was through, two very awkward people, gave two very awkward speeches about the festival or something. Then Wes Anderson appeared and thanked us for coming out and introduced Several members of the cast, who then walked onto the stage. The stars included Jason Schwartzman, Adrian Brody, Bill Murray, Angelica Houston, and some Indian people that were in the movie. It was pretty cool.

The movie finally started. I really enjoyed it, Nancy thought it was just OK. I think it is sort of a guys movie, it deals with three brothers and their stilted relationships. I don't have any siblings, so it didn't speak to me on that level, but it did remind me of my relationship with one of my best friends. The entire film is stunningly beautiful. I'm a little gay for Wes Anderson already, so this film had me at Wes Anderson.

The movie ended and it was time to kick it at the after party. We get to Tavern on the Green and there's a long line of people waiting to get in. Immediately Nancy sees a guy she knows from work at the back entrance and walks over to him. 4 seconds later we're inside, going through the "talent's" entrance. BAM! That's how we role. It turns out we didn't even need the tickets to the after party. I had never been inside Tavern on the Green before, and it was pretty freaking awesome. The place was huge. It's made up of 3 different buildings that surround an amazing courtyard. There is another outdoor area as well in the back. It almost seemed fake, like a place you would see a classy party take place in a movie. They had open bars everywhere and food stations set up in each of the rooms. It smelled like a wedding reception.

We grabbed a couple free drinks and made our way around the place. It was packed with assholes in tuxedos and attractive young women. It was wall to wall wannabes and door to door douchebags. We finally ended up in the same room as all the people from the movie. I'm cripplingly shy about talking to famous people, but Nancy is not, so we made a bee line for Wes. Nancy is my mouth piece, my ice breaker. She's like the silencer on my "I want to meet you" gun. She trots right up to him and introduces us. We shake his hand. That's it. That's about all you get in these type of events. There is 20 other people around him vying for his attention. He knows half of them, so people like me and Nancy can't hold his attention for very long. I have to say, that guy is more awkward and shy than I could ever hope to be. He's tall skinny and looks like he could be easily folded up and put in a suitcase. Like I said earlier, I'm pretty gay for his work, and I don't know what I was expecting when I met him. All I can say is it was very underwhelming. I know we're all equal on this great cosmic playing field, and no one person is really any better than any other person. However when you meet someone who you admire and respect, someone with such a strong and focused vision, you sort of expect to get a vibe off of them. A feeling or a spark. I got nuthin'. I got the feeling he is just a lucky guy that surrounded himself with amazingly talented people, which if I ever got to that degree of fame, I would do as well. Disney did it, and it's the best way to make your visions come to life faster and more precisely. I admire his work and I will continue to support his art, I just don't want to meet him anymore.

WARNING: CYNICAL NICK VIEW POINT IN 5...4...3...2...
I've actually had the good fortune to meet a lot of the people I admire. I have to say 50% of the time it's a huge let down, and I end up with a stilted view of said person that then effects the way I look at their work from there on out.

Next on our star fucking tour, Jason Schwartzman. We snuck up behind him. To get to him I had to squeeze between two of the "Star's Tables". Neither of the people I had to squeeze by scooted up and it was a tight fit. Long story short, I totally rubbed my sweet ass all across the back of Angelica Houston's head, awesome! We waited for Jason to finish talking to whoever he was talking to. Nancy jumped in and introduced herself and me, then something magical happened. This event will for ever live in the "What the Fuck" filing cabinet in my head. Just as we were striking up a conversation with Jason, a tiny old lady midget hobbles up and grabs Jason's hand, then pulls him away from us. I was thinking, "Who the hell is this rude ass old hobbit that just stole my Jason away!", then I realized, it was fucking Dr. fucking Ruth! She is literally 3 foot tall and has to be 96 years old if she's a day. She won't let go of Jason and is pulling him further and further out of me and Nancy's orbit. We just stood there, helpless, as Jason drifted off into nothingness.

The only person I was rabid about meeting was Bill Murray. I love that dude. At this point we had probably had one to many free drinks, and not enough free pasta. Bill had been sitting at his table for the past 20 minutes. There were two very young girls sitting on either side of him. No one was sure who they were, but I decide to lock and load my Nancy gun and make a move. I told Nancy I had worked out some schtick to pull on Bill. I was going to say, "I wanted to buy you a drink... but they're all free so I couldn't" We make our way to the seated Murray. We are pretty drunkish at this point. Nancy introduces us and says "We love all your movies" I look in Bill's eyes. I can tell at this point Bill's done with people. Bill wants to go home. He smiles and I blurt out "Weeeell, not all your movies" Then, with lightening precision, Nancy says, "We wanted to buy you a drink, but it's an open bar." My own wife stole my bit, I was in shock. I followed my bit up with, "Is there anything we could bring you?" He said no then offered us some of the desert that was on his table. Nancy said no thanks then asked him if she could have one of the little balls of butter that were in a small bowl on the table. I thought is was funny, but it just confused Bill Murray. We said our goodbyes and left the table.

It could have gone worse, it could have gone better, but the point is it went. We have a stupid fun celebrity story, and he has another couple of idiots that he probably forgot 3 minutes after we left his table. It was great.

The party was over so we found a cab and made our way home. All in all it was a pretty fun night. We never saw Adrian Brody, I wanted to congratulate him on the Oscar, because I've never met him thus never gotten to congratulate him?

Friday, September 28, 2007

Movie Formula

I half assidely watched "Akeelah and the Bee" yesterday. It was sort of good, but then I started to see something weird. You know how in the Matrix when Bill S. Preston started to see all the green numbers? That totally happened to me... totally! I started to see this formula appearing before my eyes, suddenly I wasn't watching a movie anymore, but a skillfully crafted mathematical equation being slowly worked out on a chalk board before my very eyes.

I've written a lot of stuff, but I'm by no means a great writer. I'm still figuring out the heroes journey, good story structure, and character development. I think I have grasp on all these concepts, but I won't have a good foot hold until I've written tons more stuff. I think after laboring over writing for so long, I look at things a lot differently than other people. I can see problems and ways to fix the problems in TV shows and movies. Everything ever made follows the same structure, whether it intends to or not. When a movie feels weird or seems odd, it's probably because it's deviated from the structure in an illogical way. We've all seen so much media throughout our lives that story structure is now hardwired into our brain. Even if you have no idea what it is, you still can feel when it's wrong.

This movie was so formulaic, so paint by numbers, that it seemed like I was watching gears in machine. I'm banging my head against a wall trying to write a screenplay and think of other screenplays I'd like to write. It isn't easy by any means, but after watching this "indy" favorite I've figured out the perfect formula to make a successful indy movie. If you are an indy film maker and you want to cash in, write this down, and I guarantee you'll have a hit on your hands.

(Child With Talent or Gift) + (Sibling That believes in them divided by parent/guardian that doesn't believe in them) x (Mysterious Stranger that once had gift and is willing to help child) + (One failed attempt) + (At least 3 fake failed attempts that redeem themselves to actually be successes) + (Parent/Guardian's change of heart) + (Mysterious Starnger's secret revealed) + (Child wins after learning the true meaning of why they are using their talent/gift) x (Uplifting voice over while watching montage) = BIG HIT

Write that down, trust me, plug in anything you want as variables into this equation and you will sell your movie at Sundance next year!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Nictionary

I just looked up the words bored, narcissistic, waste of time, and slacking off in the dictionary and they all had the same definition, this picture:

I have a problem.

Scream Dracula Scream

Anyone ever notice how much the word "blog" sounds like something Dracula would say? Anyone?

I did a really fun improv set last night in a show called Ash Wednesday. I co-host the show with Stan Laikowski, Chris Schnider, Dave Thunder, Federico Garduño, and Betsy Todd, all very funny people. We rotate our co-hosting duties, the actual hosts of the show are Stan and Chris, all the rest of us are guest hosts. It's a fun show with lots of different acts and unfortunately not a lot of audience members.

Last night it was me, Stan, Chris and Dave. We opened the show with some friendly banter then did a 10 minute improv set. The set was really funny. In the first scene I was an Italian tombstone carver and I was carving tombstone for a man who wanted the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man on his tomb and the words "Bustin' makes me feel good" on the grave stone. Then I played a retarded little man that could barely speak above a whisper, loved to hug people, loved chocolate, thought the wings on buildings meant they could fly, and it turned out I was the President. Good times, good times.

I'll be in the Film Noir show this coming Wed. Oct. 3rd at 9:30pm at the UCB. I highly suggest you guys come out for that show. It really is a lot of fun, and I have to wear make-up.

I've been jogging everyday and I've come to the conclusion that jogging sucks sweaty hairy man balls. I wish I was a washed up celebrity, so I could be on Celebrity Fit Club. At least then I'd be getting paid to slim my fat ass down. Dreams do come true.

OK I got nothin' talk to you cats later.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

cry baby nick

I've been putting off posting a blog for the past couple of days because not a freaking thing has been going on. I'm sort of hitting a creative wall right now. I can't write anything and it's scaring me. I just sit there and try to think of what I need to do now and nothing comes to me. I am a little frightened about my future to be honest. Not sure what I'm supposed to be doing and it's freaking me out.

I want to write comedy, shows or anything that I can, but I don't know how to make that happen. It seems like all the people that I thought might could help me out or point me in he right direction, sort of, well, just didn't.

I have a sick feeling in my stomach and I feel like I'm wasting my time not actually working at a job everyday that will put money in the bank. I know I have to work at this like it's my job, but it's really tough when you have no idea if you're concentrating on the right thing or you're not sure what direction you should pour your energy.

Screenplays take months and months to write, and longer to get just right. I don't mind doing that, but it's hard to feel like your doing anything productive when you don't see any return on the time you've invested.

I think all creative people have self doubt, I hope they do at least. Confidence in what your doing can take you a long way, but at some point you question what you're doing.

I go through these funks from time to time and I seem to always pull myself out. I'm not looking for a bunch of "Don't worry you're doing great" comments, I just wanted to share the shitty part of the creative process.

For not having anything to write in the blog I seem to have filled this one up, it's full of bullshit, but it's full nonetheless. I still can't believe that "nonetheless" is an actual word. It's just three words stuck together with shear willpower, but it's a totally recognized "real" word by spell check. I want to make more long strung together words. Here's my first one, "yourassisleaking". Let me use it in a sentence, "Excuse me sir, but yourassisleaking, nonetheless all over my new denim jacket."

I love all the 4 people that read my blog!!!!!!!!! Well... 3 of you at least.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Who Art on You Tube

I may or may not have had something to do with something on You Tube called "Godcast". All I know is that it was featured this weekend on the front page and the first episode, which I may or may not have had a hand in making over 9 months ago, went from 1000 views to 100,000 views. It's pretty crazy. At any rate, if you haven't seen any of them you should check them out. It's like if God had a mini talk show. There are 17 episodes, the first is a little slow, but they get better. I may or may not really appreciate your patronage.

http://youtube.com/profile?user=YeahItsReallyMe
http://www.myspace.com/who_art_in_heaven

Also I made a commercial for the upcoming Night-OH-Cabaret. See it below:



PLEASE send the link to your friends in Dallas, especially if they work in a big office:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wAv6S-vZEZ0

Our hope is that people will start sending it around their office. Thanks and have a great weekend buddies.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I'm a detective

I just realized that I posted a blog about being fat, and the blog right under the "I'm fat" blog was a blog about my massive almost junkie like consumption of greasy cheesy Mexican food. Could there be a connection?

I'm still doing research, I'll post my results when the forensic report gets back from the lab.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What the hell happened to me!

I finally watched the tape of my one man show. I'm not trying to sound like a douche bag or anything, but I did a lot better than I thought I did. There were definite hiccups, areas that I can fix and need to iron out, but all in all it was really funny. Way to go me!

So that was the good thing about watching the tape, the bad thing was, I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING SEA LION THAT JUST ATE ANOTHER FATTER SEA LION! I'm so fat! When did I get so fat? I mean I don't exorcise or eat well, but there's no reason for what I saw on that tape. That was a wake up call my friends. Starting tomorrow, I'm eating nothing but laxatives and throwing up every hour on the hour.

I do need to lose about 20 pounds. That ain't easy when your as old as I am. I'm like 72 years old. My metabolism is slower than Britney Spears during a dance routine. I guess it's a good thing I watched the tape before it got much worse, I mean a couple more days and I wouldn't even be able to get out of the apartment without a forklift and my son Johny Depp.

Getting older sucks balls.

Every time I do laundry I get a craving for Mexican food

Me and the wifey did laundry today. We fold it at the laundry matt because they have a long white sterile table there. They always have the Spanish radio station playing and every time we get to the folding part I start to get a craving for Mexican food. I love Mexican food to begin with, so it doesn't take much to nudge my cravings in that direction.

I want EVERY person from Texas to know that New York has the worst Mexican food on the entire planet. There's not one place here that has good Mexican food. It floors me that a city with 100's of great Italian, Thai, Greek, Indian and pretty much any other category of food, doesn't have at least one good Mexican joint. There are places that are OK mind you, but not great. They either don't get close to the greasy awesomeness that it should be, or they have a nuevo chic hipster twist on Mexican food.

Every time I visit Dallas I eat as much Mexican food as I can. I try in vain to make up for all the fantastic meals I've missed. It's never enough and my friends and family are sick of it by the time I leave. I'm like a crack fiend for Mexican food. I crave the chips and salsa. I crave the cheese dip that has guacamole, beef and sour cream at the bottom. I crave the tacos that fall apart because the ground beef grease as dissolved the shell. I crave the hot melted cheese covered enchiladas that you can see the hot lines rising up from. I crave the Mexican rice and re-fried beans that come with anything you order, even desert.

I'll be in Dallas in less than a month, and I'm making room to shovel as much of that sweet sweet greasy melted godlike food as I can into my body!!!!

Monday, September 17, 2007

People are dumb, not you... you're one of the good ones

Why is everyone so fucking shocked when Sarah Silverman says something "shocking". That's her schtick. She's been the semi-pretty girl that says vagina, aids, fuck and talks about black people for her entire career. She's literally had the same "act" for over ten years. It's WHY she's famous. I'm not buying all these retarded tv critics freaking out over her making "subversive", "off-color", or "mean spirited" comments on TV. It's like they all just pulled their heads out of their asses last week, wiped the shit out of their eyes and ears, and saw her on the MTV music awards for the very first time. Which, if I know my media, they might actually just have done that.

I'm sick of people acting surprised when Lindsy Lohan decides to take a role in a crappy movie about a sassy teenager trying to find herself in a small northern town, then not showing up for work because she just snorted a big bag of cocaine of her moms tits at a rave her dad threw.

I'm tired of people freaking out when Britney Spears is drunk at a party every night of the week and flashes her poonanny as if anyone on earth hasn't seen it yet. I guarantee their are starving children in Africa that haven't eaten a meal in weeks that have seen Britney's Va J-J. I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks she is any smarter than a monkey with downsyndrome.

Why do people care? Why are these the lead stories on CNN. Why is OJ stealing a baseball card from a hotel room after a wedding reception on the front page of my newspaper. If I did that, I'd be lucky to get on the front page of a one page leaflet, that happened to be about me stealing a baseball card from a hotel room after a wedding reception.

My wife has crazy friends that she keeps telling me stories about. Then after she's done, she always says, "Can you believe that?" I ALWAYS say, "Yes, yes I can believe that, she is crazy, she does crazy shit over and over again. Why are you continually surprised?"

I think she should start her stories with, "It's time for another episode of My Crazy Ass Friend, starring (So and So). Tonight's episode...", think of a title, then tell me the story. That way it's more fun for me because it's like a show. It's like an episode of I Love Lucy, I'm all like, "I wonder what that wacky (so and so) is up to this time." I know the characters, I expect them to be crazy, and I'm never surprised by them doing something insane.

Maybe it would take the drama out of life if people didn't over react when these idiot celebrities do something completely in their character. But damn it I refuse to be surprised the next time Andy Dick gets drunk and high and attacks then fucks a mannequin in Macy's.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Cabaret in the Frey

We're doing a big time awesome Night-OH-Cabaret on Oct. 20th, and it's always confused me why we never sell this show completely out. Hell, sometimes we do it and hardly anyone shows up. We've tried everything from paying hundreds of dollars on an ad in the Observer, to plastering posters all over Dallas. Nothing has ever really helped us get a ton of people there. It's always a great show and seems to really be a big hit with the people who do come out.

Maybe not doing it every week or doing it so sporadically is a bad thing. We've argued for hours about why more people don't show up. I swear it's the funniest thing going on in Dallas at any given time. It's always different and yet has enough familiarity to please new comers as well as die hard fans.

I did something for the show last week that I should have done a long time ago. I started the show it's own My Space page. I know that sounds retarded, but I really feel it's a great way to keep the show in front of people so they remember that it's coming up. If you haven't gotten a friend request and you want to ask to be friends with the show the address is:

http://www.myspace.com/nightohcabaret

Please befriend the show, it gets lonely. I also had the idea to make a couple insane 30 second commercials for the show and start sending them all over the place in Dallas. Try to get a viral ad campaign going on in the metroplex, so when you get the e-mail with the commercial, please send it to all your friends at work. That's the point at least. I worked in an office too, I now all people do all day is e-mail funny videos back and forth.

At any rate, I hope all my Dallas peeps come to the show and help spread the word around town.



See ya at the SHOW!!!!!!

Friday, September 14, 2007

All Work and No Play Makes Nick A Dull Boy...

Why is it so hard to just do what you're supposed to do? All I'm supposed to do is write scripts, but my obsessive compulsive e-mail checking and Internet surfing keeps pulling me away.

I just finished the first draft of a 5 page mini-treatment for a children's film that I'm trying to write. I let Nancy read it so she could give me notes. She did and as always I was very defensive. She was right about her notes, but it just means more work for me to fix it up. I acted like I had a lot of shit going on or something when in fact I don't. I'm sort of not very good at taking criticism. I used to be super terrible, then I got better, now I've regressed back into my old ways. It's like loosing weight. You do good for a while, you start plumping back up and then you get it back in check.

My problem is I have an internal deadline clock with any project I start. I feel like I have to rush to get it done before someone else does it first. Ideas are golden in this industry. A good one could net you millions of dollars, so I'm very protective of my ideas. However, ideas aren't very loyal. They hop around from head to head until someone has the gumption and luck to get it made. And trust me, this industry is built on a solid foundation of luck. I've seen so many of my ideas get made by other people that it's turned me into a nervous wreck. The first one to the finish line wins in this business. Recently there were two movies made about Truman Capote. The Second one released was actually a lot better than the first, and was also in production before the firtst one that was released. But the second one that was released just got compared to the first one and that hurt it's performance at the box office.

So, I have to get back to work on this mini treatment. I have to add some stuff I was trying to avoid out of shear laziness. There's no race, but i feel like there is, and I feel like I'm in last place. Anyone out there want to buy an awesome kids movie?

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Margaritaville, Population: Me

OK, so I may or may not have made a pitcher of the most amazing margaritas ever tonight, and I may or may not be a little tipsy right now. Regardless of my sobriety, I am going to divulge the recipe for the most awesomest Margaritas ever made... by me.

I was trying to go by a recipe, but I took the lime less traveled, and that made all the difference. That's the second time I've quoted Frost in my blog this month. I just realized, quoting a great poet is absolutely fucking useless if you quote their most well know verse. It's like quoting the "To be or not to be" line from Shakespear. Sure it's Shakespeare, but it's like the Diet Coke of Shakespeare.

Whatever. So I'm not the most well versed literary spokesperson. Who cares, I write comedy, and the best comedy comes from what people are most familiar with. Why should I waste my time reading shit that no one remembers or understands?

You fell for my trap! The best comedy comes from tragedy, thus I must be well versed in all literature. I must understand the complexity of man to truly understand his frailty. Then I must write a fart joke about that frailty.

I'm getting drunkenly way off topic. I think I started this blog originally to talk about how retarded this, the entertainment industry, is, and how, no matter how talented or creative you may be, or how many comas you use in a sentence, no one will notice you unless you are related to a famous person, or happen to be directly in front of a producer at the exact time that he or she isn't scratching his or her ass, in order to make any sort of movement forward.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So here's that Margarita recipe:

Mix
1 Chorona
1 cup of tequila
1 cup of tonic
1/2 cup of lime juice
1/2 cup of Triple Sec
2 Table Spoons of Sugar

Let chill, and I'll be damned if it doesn't taste as sweet as your 15 year old sisters nipples. It also might make you bitter and lash out at the very industry you are trying to get a leg up into.

Also you may end a lot of sentences in verbs and prepositions.


PS
OK, I should have ended this blog with the above sentence, because, actually, it accidentally ended perfectly. This is an addendum to this blog, because after I published this entry I ran across the open word document that reminded me of why I actually started this blog in the first place. It wasn't to tell you a margarita recipe, which IS awesome BTW. It wasn't to get angry at the entertainment industry, which does suck balls BTW. This blog entry was mainly started so I could post my submission to the Onion. I have a friend who wrote for the Onion at some point in some capacity, and he said he would send them my submission. The Onion asks for 25 headlines as a submission, and I did them fairly quickly for this friend of mine. I then e-mailed them to him and he was in turn going to e-mail them to the Onion for me. It's at his point that I have no idea what happen. I'm guessing they didn't like any of them, but that's just the cynic in me popping out as he often does. He's like a twisted jack-in-the-box. You turn the crank in my side and it plays a Radiohead or Cure song and this jaded evil version of me pops out, to spit shit and venom all over whoever will listen to him.

At any rate, here are my 25 headlines for the Onion, of which I still don't know if they ever even made it to the Onion.


Environmentally Friendly Al Qaeda members Now Using Electric Cars For Car Bombs

God Finds Himself In Prison

Lindsey Lohan OD’s Then Continues To Party All Night Long

Police Discovered 2 Tons Of Explosives On The East River Around Noon July 4th, Possible Terrorist Links To China

Goddamn It! This iPhone Is Fucking Kick Ass! Have you Played With This Thing Yet? Fuck Me!

Special Olympics Awarding President Bush With Lifetime Achievement Award

Larry King Actually Muppet Operated By Frank Oz

Area Man Still Can’t Get A Date, Even Though He Has An Enormous Penis

Britney Spears Becomes Self-Aware

Nations Top Scientist Discover That Women’s Orgasm’s Are Useless, and Further More They Should Shut The Hell Up About It Already

Next Presidential Election/End Of World Coming Together Well

Russia Sues Sheryl Crow For Stealing Their One Square Of Toilet Paper Initiative

Michael Bay Eats Bad Clams And Has Most Over The Top Action Packed Explosive Diarrhea Of The Summer

I Really Don’t Want To Write This Article

Area Man Thinks Inspector Gadget Would "Accidentally" Win A Fight With Robocop

G.I. Joe Celebrates Over 50 Years With No Casualties

Casper the Ghost's Murderer Captured, Casper Too Friendly To Press Charges

Friends Getting Sick Of Tom’s First Person Shooter Flashbacks

Gas Prices Aren’t Nearly As High As I Am Right Now

Area Man’s Ending, More Embarrassing And Uncomfortable Than Happy

Man Who Hasn’t Read Any Of The Harry Potter Books Hears The Last One Will Be Really Good

Bush Enacts “First Dibs” Legislation

Robin William’s Thanks Team of Writers For Another Year of Humorous “Off The Cuff” Banter

Hollywood Executives Not Even Trying Anymore, And America Loves It

Area Man Believes Stripper Totally Into Him





Some are golden, some are turds. I'll let you decide which are which.

Monday, September 10, 2007

HEY DALLAS! QUICK, LOOK OVER HERE!!!!!

That's right Dallas friends, it's time for another big time Cabaret! Mark your calenders and start telling all your friends, word of mouth is pretty much our only advertising.

Saturday Oct. 20th at Ozona's 2 shows 8pm and 10pm.

We are having the live band and it should be tons of fun as always. And we can PROUD say that Britney Spears Will NOT be opening the show for us, thank God.

We will be having a huge sale on all our Merchandise as well. It's a perfect chance to pick up a couple copies of the Aqua Rangers, please, we have a whole lot of them taking up space in our spare room. Also pick up the Night-OH-Cabaret DVD, it's really fun and has some cute stuff on it. It's even better now for nostalgic reasons.



Please help us spread the world folks, see you in October!!!!!!

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Vacating the Vacation

It's been a long and strange trip my friends, but here we are on the last leg of this amazing vacation blogstravaganza!

It seems like just yesterday I was blogging about Aaron's house in Seattle, and now here we are, moments away from Seal Beach. Seal Beach was our last stop on the West Coast Tour of 2007. We stayed with our friend Vanessa and her awesome sister Noel.

We left Ryan's place around 3 or 4 and found ourselves in the O.C. lickety split. Our first stop was a little California burger chain known as In and Out Burger.



We rolled up and ordered a Double Double Animal style and an order of fries Animal style as well. Dear sweet lord in heaven was this good. Both burger and fries were delivered to us slathered in chili, cheese and other things I can't remember at this point. Me and Nancy shared the burger and fries. We lapsed into a greasy coma and sank into the Kia satisfied.

Next stop, Vanessa and Noel's sweet apartment. It was literally 3 blocks form the beach. They lived in a little beach town that was only one mile long. This is the place me and Nancy want to move, does anyone have one million bucks we could borrow? This place was not to be believed. All the houses were so freaking cute and everyone pretty much keeps their doors unlocked at night. It was like a weird bizarro world.

Vanessa and her sister lived behind this place.



Vanessa was still at work so we decided to trot down to the beach for a bit until she got home.








KING OF THE BEACH!



This seagull could really shoot the curl!



We went for a walk in the neighborhood and looked at all the cute beach houses. I think they were all built by cartoon characters.



Someone at some point made this, and thought someone somewhere would someday buy it. Then one day, someone did.



There is no way an American Eagle could fit in this.



Best surfboard repair in the O.C.!



I'm the furthest thing from a car dude, but there were some pretty cool automobiles in the area.






Vanessa called and told us she was home so we went back to her place and showered the beach off us. All they had was pink towels, but my supreme manliness turned this pink towel totally straight.



Nancy, Vanessa, and I then went to a place that had fantastic fish tacos. Unfortunately on the way we found out how Vanessa could afford to live in such a ritzy neighborhood. She mugged my wife!



It was OK though, she paid for dinner. We went back to her place and Nancy, Vanessa and Noel let me do a read through of my One-Man show. They all loved it. That's right dudes, I had three hot chics all to myself eating out of my hand. I'M A ROCK STAR!

We hit the hay because we had to get up at 5:30am to make it to the airport the next day. We woke up, returned the rental car, and hopped on a plane back home.

All in all it was a pretty amazing trip. I still can't believe we did as much as we did in such a short time. Again my love and thanks goes out to all the friends that let us crash and toted us around. We had an absolutely fabulous time.

Thought I'd end it all with the photo that wraps the whole vacation up into a bow.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

I Still Love L.A.

When we last left our world travelers, their host was drinking beer from an empty miniature Snickers bag.

I have to say, that is the best set up to a blog entry ever.

Our little band of drunken people were now in route to a local bar, just up the street from Mita's house. I took some pictures of the cool houses in he neighborhood.




During our sloshy little caravan, we pasted something so cute, that I risked being arrested as a creepy child predator to get a picture.



I asked her what she called the rabbit and she said "dinner". Just kidding, she didn't speak English.

There was some really fantastic graffiti by the bar.



Question:
This is a group of...

Answers:
A. College Kids.
B. Drunks.
C. Homeless People.
D. The people I was hanging out with.



The bar we went to used to be a bowling alley. It had a big tarp in front of the lanes, here's what was behind the tarp.



We walked in at 5pm and there was a live band playing terrible rock music. The bar had carpet on the ground and it was full of either college age kids or 60 year old people. I felt like I stepped into a time machine and went back to my college days.

As you can see we were all totally having fun.




Next on the agenda was a visit to the L.A. Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. After grabbing a taco at a mobile taco stand, we made our way to the theater. My friend and improv buddy Vanessa, who now lives in the O.C., met us there for the show.

The show we saw was ASSSSSCAT. It's a crazy improv show featuring the best improvisers in town. It's always hosted by at least one of the original four members of the UCB. Since the three guys from UCB now live in L.A., they all hosted. Here's a blurry snapshot of Matt Besser, Matt Welch, and Ian Robberts. Some of the guest improvisers were Owen Burke, Billy Merret, Brian Husky and Chad Carter. It was a ton of fun.



Afterward we grabbed a drink at a crowded bar next door. About 30 minutes later Vanessa and Mita's friends decided to call it a night. Ryan insisted on taking us to this tiki bar called Tiki Ti. It was small and pretty crowded, but it was fun.



This was our last stop of the night. We made our way back to Mita's and decided to just stay the night there. Mita had this air mattress that was unbelievably comfortable, also if there was a flood we would have been safe.

The next morning we all went to this place called Auntie M's for some breakfast. We had to pay for this one, but it was worth it. The food was so good. I had "shit on a shingle", which was toast with gravy slathered all over it. This gravy was like greasy brown liquid orgasm. Oh my God was it tasty. I could eat a bowl of it everyday if I didn't care about whether my heart kept pumping.

On the way back to the car we noticed this.



Next stop was Ryan's apartment. Holy shit was his place great. It was freaking enormous. I didn't want to ask how much he was paying. I swear to God each of his rooms was double the size of each of each our rooms. I was drooling at the space.



Nancy was thinking about divorcing me and marrying Ryan.



Instead of a peep hole in his front door, Ryan had this.



The concept of a door in a door scared me, because that's exactly the sort of thing that opens portals to other worlds.

At some point that morning Ryan started singing "She's like the Wind" by Patrick Swayze. Thus began the "Dirty Dancing" theme that followed us around for the rest of the day. At Ryan's place he found Dirty Dancing on his cable box and watched the first thirty minutes. I had never seen it, and I realize now why. It was gawd-awful. I did notice that the same way I can quote Anchorman or Raising Arizona, Nancy could quote this movie. I've never seen a chic do the whole, "Movie Quoting" thing before. I always thought that was a total dude thing. Turns out they just hide this awful habit better than us.

We past a flea market that Ryan called the Rock'n'Roll flea market for some reason and decided to check it out.



You ladies likah my fabrics?



This dapper little boy kept staring at us.



Best flea market jazz band ever!



I hadn't created any paradox's lately, so I took a pictures of pictures. Up yours MC Escher.



Next on the docket was a quick stop in Middle Earth.



Since New York has yet to figure out how to make good Mexican food, I demanded that our hosts take us to the best Mexican Restaurant in town. On the way Ryan took us by "The House of Davids". It's this crazy dudes house that has tons of David statues on his front lawn. I was hoping they were David Hasselhoff statues, but they weren't.




Then we stop off at The Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was designed by Frank Gehry and was super freaky.





We were all starving at this point, but Ryan insisted on taking us by this crazy cafeteria downtown. Clifton's Cafeteria has been there for years and has an interesting history, none of which I can remember.



We bought some side dishes to hold us over and checked out the nutty Cafeteria's decor. The first and second floors are decorated like a forest. Ryan took us upstairs to this weird hidden tiny room called the chapel. You sit in it and press a button and this recorded message talks about relaxing and God and stuff.




The third floor was closed off, but we went up to look around anyway. There was newspaper clippings, pictures of the Clifton's family and little history write ups framed all over the walls. All I know for sure was, this room had the exact same wallpaper as my website.



We hopped in the car and drove to the Mexican Restaurant. It was very good. I had a flaming Margarita. Unfortunately I burned off my eyebrows.




We dropped Mita off at her place and the three of us headed back out to the Channel 101 screening. I was excited because I wanted to meet Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab. They are the guys who created Channel 101 and wrote the pilot for Heat Vision and Jack. I had reservations for the second screening at 9:30. We watched the pilots and voted for our favorites. Then it was time for me to get up enough nerve to talk to Dan. Unfortunately Rob had already taken off. I finally walked up and introduced myself to Dan. It was cool to talk to him for a second about stuff, I honestly don't remember what we talked about.

Everyone was tired so we went to Ryans place and crashed.

Only one more vacation blog to go kids. Whew, this is turning out to be a lot more work than I ever wanted it to be. Please leave me some comments if you like the blogs, I opened it up so anyone can comment, yes even you Satan.