Matt Little was able to secure some exclusive footage of the Iron Man movie, which he showed at the New York Comic Con.
EXCLUSIVE Iron Man Footage from Matt Little on Vimeo.
I’m glad Robert Downey, Jr. is doing so well.
My first joke for the Onion News Network was used in this video:
Study: Nearly 80 Percent Of Roommates Got So Drunk Last Night
Look for a joke about trains, and you’ll see the first fruit of my labors.
One of the things I do to hurt myself is read CNN.com news stories. It’s junk food news. I don’t learn anything, I waste my time, I get my fill, then I feel awful for the rest of the day. The news stories are so sensationalist, and the headlines even more so. The national news is full of grisly murders. Election coverage is so inconsistently focused. As for the Entertainment section, you are better off just throwing up on yourself. That might sound hyperbolic, but I am sincere. Next time you want to read the CNN Entertainment news, just throw up on yourself and you’ll be ahead of the game.
The video section is just as bad, if not worse, because I have to hear these second-rate journalism flunkies actually talk. CNN’s staff of reporters is seriously as adept at their job as every Best Buy employee you’ve ever talked to.
The recently filed this report named “Aber-Obama and Fitch”, which should just make you angry just by reading the title. This completely non-news item covers the three guys behind Barack Obama at his speech following the Pennsylvania primary. I was at a bar that Tuesday night, and watched a bit of that speech, and I even noticed these three guys. We all laughed it off and went back to what we were doing. Instead, CNN reporter Jeanne Moos, who has filed a ton of clunkers in the past, decides this is a story that needs coverage (or maybe the news director told her to do it. In whatever case, someone should have burst into the door and said “This isn’t news! Can’t you see what you are doing here!?”).
The video gets off to a rousing start with a soundbite of Obama saying “It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness…” which Moos takes as a cue to file the most silly and distracting piece she could. She even puts on a silly voice as she says sarcastically “Distractions like the three guys behind you, Senator!?” Exactly those kind of distractions, Jeanne.
On a side note, they cut to the Clinton speech where a guy was wearing boxing gloves. That’s a little more peculiar to me. I see Abercrombie and Fitch shirts everyday. I don’t see boxing gloves. Also, Hilary’s crowd was chanting “Yes she can!” I think that typifies the Clinton campaign so well. She is dragging focus away from her competition by retooling his style and not by being a distinct candidate. Also, she’s taken a slogan about working together to improve our nation and made it just about her success. Now I’m double-angry!
The report goes on to talk about the blogosphere blowing up about it, the supposed product placement, even delving into a comedy skit where Moos goes to the Abercrombie and Fitch store in New York asking customers if they were standing behind Obama.
If you can, avoid watching cable news whenever you can, unless you are some sick junkie like me that is somehow drawn to this exaggerated version of the world where people are horrifically murdered, children get kidnapped, and the environment is ruined and is trying to kill us. That’s not the way the world is. It is not frightening and scary all the time. Cable news thinks you are stupid and will believe anything they tell you. They think you care about three Obama supporters in similar shirts.
For as much of ruckus as these three boys have caused, they eventually contacted CNN and said they didn’t even notice they were all wearing Abercrombie and Fitch shirts. If they didn’t even notice, why should we?
Man, why am I bothered by things like this?
I did not train in acting, or study it whatsoever, when I was in my academic years. I have done plays in schools, though that was a long time ago. However, sometimes I am called upon to do a bit of acting in a video sketch project by some comedy friends. That’s when I need to do a bit of homework to understand the craft.
My secret? Well, I just watch this:
Tonight is the first of four performances I am doing in a show called ImproVérité: An Improvised Documentary. Myself and 15 other improvisors take the stage to perform an entire documentary that we make up right in front of you. You’ll leave feeling uplifted.
ImproVérité: An Improvised Documentary
at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater
307 W 26th Street
New York, NY
11 PM
5 bux to get in, or free with admission to Harold Night
Friday night, I went to an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime show at The Brooklyn Academy of Music hall. Paul Simon has a month-long residency at BAM this April, and is performing special shows with a lot special guests. Very special stuff.
Before the show, I went to use the bathroom, and some guy was in there saying in the weird maniacal tone “Paul Simon… Paul Simon… Paaaul Simon… I hope he wins tonight… Uncle Paul!… Uncle Paul…” I think he may have yelled out during the show when Paul was actually going to talk to the crowd, “Hey don’t kick me out, I’m just trying to dance!” Paul, who was about to talk about his friend going to the hospital, composed himself and said politely “Well, what if you dance and you’re bad at it? Then everybody gets bummed out and I still have to do a show. So far, you are a protester of dancing.” What an odd little man.
I went to the one of the “Under African Skies” concerts, where Paul revisits his work on Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints. For these shows, he was performing with some of his favorite performers including Ladysmith Black Mumbazo and David Byrne. There were about 3 or 4 other guest musicians as well as Paul’s band. It was quite a crowded stage by the end of the show.
The set was mainly a Rhythm of the Saints sandwich on Graceland bread. I haven’t heard Rhythm of the Saints, but it was more musical and atmospheric than the pop songs on Graceland. I had 4 hours sleep the night before, so I started to go off on weird reveries and find myself nodding off a bit. Not that the music was boring, but it just wasn’t the kind of stuff I wanted to hear to get me energized. That all changed, though, when David Byrne came out to sing “I Know What I Know” followed by “You Can Call Me Al” (both of which he either transposed lines or forgot the lyrics). The audience went nuts and started to dance in their seats. One woman near us stood up to clap, which angered an elderly woman behind us. She had to keep asking people to tell her to sit down because everyone refused.
The encore started with Paul singing “Graceland”, which is such a sad song. It’s crazy to see hundreds of white people dancing to a song about dealing with the heartbreak of divorce. It ended with “That Was Your Mother.” Sort of a weird choice, but everyone in the theater stood up to dance.
After seeing this show and the Chevy Chase interview, I think my life has become full circle from the moment I first fell in love with the “You Can Call Me Al” music video.
Too bad Chevy didn’t show up to sing instead.
Last night, I went to go see an Inside Joke with Chevy Chase. Inside Joke is a great show that I try to see every time it’s on the UCB schedule. I got to see John Hodgman talk and a preview screening of Hot Fuzz with an interview with Nick Front, Simon Pegg, and Edgar Wright. Carl Arheiter does a great job booking some really funny, respected names in Comedy.
Chevy Chase is different, though.
A lot of people will talk about how unfunny the man is and what a mess his career has become. Guys like me will talk about how he’s had it coming for what a colossal prick he was to everyone when he was on top of his game. The fact of the matter is that Chevy Chase is very funny. The movies he’s been in after 198Something are not. He’s also wised up since then.
Chevy is a master of the take. The entire show was peppered with split-second facial ticks or glances that were so on the money. The audience loved him. A lot of people give the crowd at the UCB flack for being a crowd of jaded hipsters, but I do not think that’s the case. If it were, they would be stone-walling Chevy because once upon a time, someone told them that the guy who was in Fletch wasn’t funny. I think it’s more accurate to say that the audience knows he was a huge part of Saturday Night Live and that he was a big star for a reason. Plus, there are most likely kids like me who were shown Vacation by their irresponsible fathers.
It was nice to hear his perspective on how he came up as a writer for Alan King, The Smothers Brothers, MAD Magazine, and National Lampoon. I was amazed to hear that he got his job at SNL by basically being a funny guy in line to watch the premiere of Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Lorne Michaels heard him, asked his friend about him, and called him in for an interview to be the head writer for his new show.
He was a loner at SNL, having come up through the ranks by himself. Everyone else had ensemble training from being through Second City. He decided to leave SNL for his girlfriend in LA, who he was madly infatuated with, and not for career reasons. His favorite role is Fletch. He can’t stand his acting in Caddyshack. He hasn’t watched his work on SNL since it was broadcast. What a strange character.
He didn’t talk a lot about Comedy in the big sense, more of just his career and what he’s done. I would have liked to hear him talk about that. The philosophy of comedy that he did speak to was a matter of perspective. Comedy is a way of looking at things with the perspective to know what is really important and what isn’t. That spoke to me, because I’ve always thought about that same ideas as what gives someone their sense of humor. If you think everything is important, what can you make fun of? If you think nothing’s important, then you’re just an idiot. It’s nice to hear someone that has been around the block say something you thought about in your spare time.
I had a change of heart watching the show. After hearing so many stories about Chevy Chase being a horrible person, I started to believe he was simply reaping what he had sewn. For instance, in the 1980’s when he was hosting again, he kept pitching a sketch about Terry Sweeney, SNL’s openly gay cast member at the time, playing a man dying of AIDS being weighed every week. He was so boorish and rude that Lorne made the decision not to let him host again. He’s popped up every now and then, even recently doing a bit for Weekend Update about the election. However you forget that people’s sensitivity can over blow a situation, or a comedian’s sensibility can clash with another’s. But there is good taste and bad taste. Chevy’s actions were wrong, but not villainous. We can’t really fault him for trying to be edgy. The man did write the famous “Job Interview” sketch for Richard Pryor. “Deeeead honkey.”
I was hoping I would get to meet him, but that didn’t happen. I didn’t want to hang around to wait to see him. I’m sure he just wanted to get home afterwards. Maybe not, I don’t know. Whenever I’m on stage, I will soak up as much praise as possible into my hungry ego. After a career running for over 30 years, I can imagine that might get a bit tiresome.
This morning I was already running late to work. I had just missed the A train as I walked into the station, so I had to wait about 10 minutes for the next wave. Usually, the A train in the morning works like this; One will pull into the station, packed to the gills with people, and then you try to cram yourself into a small square foot of space like an urban Tetris game so you can get to work, or you can wait 2 minutes for the next one that is coming right behind the first which has a fair amount of people on it.
As the first train pulls into the station, I see the cars go by packed with people. Packed, full, nearly empty (what?), packed, packed. As the doors open, I run to the almost empty train. There are seats open! Whole benches vacant! How is no one riding in here?
Then I get punched in the face by one of the worst smells a human being can make. There was a man sitting with his head hung over his knees, with a visible cloud of funk coming off of his dirty coat. Had he not been moving on his own accord, I would have thought that I was smelling a corpse.
I couldn’t stay on the train at all, as I was gagging a little bit just standing there. I had to catch my breath again as I waited for the second train in the wave to pull into the station. As everyone got on the train, I watched everyone frantically move to the front of the car. Looking behind me as I got on, I saw another homeless man sitting with his feet propped up eating his breakfast of Cheetos and coke. In order to maximize his enjoyment, the man had taken his shoes and socks off to let his feet breathe and enjoy the cool morning weather. His face was plastered with a smug sense of superiority. He was doing this to us on purpose. I was now faced with being nearly an hour late for work if I skipped this train too.
So that’s why my jacket smells like feet today.
There will be wrestles.
There will be slams.
There will be manias.
Reserve your tickets today!
Only 14,000 seats in the UCBW arena!
Here’s my impression of every photo I am seeing of Eliot Spitzer:
