Asthenia

fundon calling

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:36:09 GMT

moved into my summer quarters on Sunday -- a huge house just north of campus. I feel like I'm just killing time until I move to London.

I joined the writing staff of Cracked Magazine (cracked.com) a few months ago and keep waiting, waiting, waiting for something I write to get published. So far they've taken a bunch of my pitches but given them to other writers.

Look Cookie moving steadfastly into a new, positive direction. Rehearsal on Sunday was very productive.

Jocks & Nerds

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:02:42 GMT

Jocks & Nerds win the Cage Match, move on to the championship. Thursday, May 22nd: Everybody Gets Laid.

Moving out of my apartment into a sublease on May 1st; leaving Austin on or about September 2nd (right after OoB). Scared but anxious. I miss Europe, and it's time to go back. Never say good bye. Never turn your back. Now it's just a matter of finding some improv in London. I made a half-hearted attempt the other day and was discouraged by what I found.

Some advertising company has been paying me $40/pop to put ads up on Ask Jimmy Suede articles. I like the extra income. I need to keep writing.

Talked with the dudes at Do512.com about project X. This weekend will be spent hunched over a keyboard. Let's make this work. Money money money money money money.

Jocks & Nerds. Look Cookie. Gonna miss the good times.

Willful suspension of disbelief

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:57:50 GMT

I sat on my couch after returning home from the caucus and watched the election results while drinking whiskey. Will Wynn was at my caucus.

I really can't believe that Ohio bought the NAFTA rhetoric. What a joke. I read a quote from a Hispanic man in a story about Clinton's Texas core demographic the other day; he said that he supported Hillary because she had "done things for him" in the past and that Barack Obama hadn't. Are you kidding me? So Hillary Clinton won our state because she accomplished "things" for one divisive racial demographic before 9/11? Thanks for seeing the forest for the trees.

Chill factor X

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:49:15 GMT

Xcepted 2:
University College London w/ full scholarship

Waiting 4:
Northwestern University
Columbia University

Chill 2 the max. Don't forget ur life. Never say good bye. Never gonna die.

Cage Match: Legacy of Shame news tomorrow.

All chilled and stuff

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:45:28 GMT

Thursday night's Look Cookie show was one of my absolute favorites. Friday's was a disaster.

I don't know what happened Friday. I think we psyche ourselves out when the audience isn't immediately on our side -- when we have to win them over. We've grown accustomed to audiences appreciating our frenetic style of play and our self-fulfilling prophecies of gratification; someone will enter the stage with an agenda, and the rest of us will step aside and let it play out. We've become familiar with each other's devices: I know when Cody is going to embody an abstraction, I know when Michael is going to split the scene, I know when Bryan is going to play an inanimate object. And we let each other do it because we're confident that we -- collectively, as a troop -- can pull it off. We also let each other do it because we -- collectively, as a troop -- think we're hilarious. When we're having fun on stage; when we're laughing so hard we can't get our responses out; when we're anxiously waiting for our turn to tap someone out and heighten the game, we're at our best.

But we face problems when the audience isn't in on the joke -- or, worse, doesn't find it funny. I'm not sure what to do in situations like that. On one hand, I'm performing for an audience; they paid to see me, and I owe them something for their money. But on the other hand, isn't improv grounded in the tenet of truth in comedy? What is more truthful -- as humor; as theater; as humanity -- than the players having so much fun in what they're doing that they can't stop laughing? An audience of 20 represents a wide variety of perspectives. As a performer, I can choose to try to cater to one of them, to a subset of them, to the lowest common denominator of them, or to none of them. Or I can trust that it is a visceral human impulse to enjoy an upbeat good time.

I think that's our problem -- we start to try to cater to the audience when a show doesn't start off spectacularly. And isn't that impossible? As I said, 20 people might represent 20 different perspectives -- on humor, on anything. So we go for the lowest common denominator. And that's the kiss of death for a show.

I'm not a theater snob; far from it. I have no problem with enowing myself as Steve Urkell or Dan from Roseanne. The most fun I've ever had in improv was coming into a scene between Jerry and Leah about 5 minutes in and pretending they were on the stage at the Jerry Springer show. But at the same time, I hate the idea of pandering to the audience, and I think it is absolutely momentum-breaking in a show. All I can do after a show like Friday's is to endeavor to fulfill my own whims on stage -- to create and commit to scenarios that I think are funny.

So that's it. We hadn't had a truly unenjoyable show in a while, and maybe that feeling is out of our system now. In any case, we're working on a new fomat that I'm excited about. Surprise, surprise -- it's a pop culture reference.

Showz

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:53:11 GMT

The Cage Match unfolded beautifully last night. Hank & Tony was a really fun show to perform in. I thought we were going to win since I found Lance backstage beforehand and threatened to send him to hell, but I guess my off-stage tactics didn’t work. Back to the drawing board.

The last two Look Cookie shows have been fantastic, too. I’ve had so much fun with improv over the last month – which is good, because I’m getting to a point where I can’t dedicate as much time to comedy as I once did. So if I can only do three shows and walk away from two of them with a smile on my face, I won’t get discouraged. When I first moved to Austin, I had very little going on in my life and could do stand-up twice a week and see 6 shows. I’m lucky if I get one free evening at home now, so I have to be a lot more discriminating when I choose to participate in shows. That said, I enjoyed playing in the P! Company show last week, and I’m doing it again tonight.

You've got time to waste

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 02:21:44 GMT

Hosting the Good Sunday show was weird. The Out of Bounds show was weird. Right when I hit the point of critical mass of missing written comedy, I get asked to syndicate my column for money and told that a super-duper dreamboat wants to move to Austin!

Saturday Night

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:44:42 GMT

The Saturday show was a complete blast. Packed house, great audience, good times.

Too bad I wasn't invited to the afterparty. Or was I?

I laid them out in stone in case they need to last forever

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:14:15 GMT

Look Cookie practice was a lot of fun last Sunday. Jose is an excellent teacher. He made me re-evaluate my perspective on improv and formats as a crutch. We had a show that night that went well -- I really enjoyed everything we did, but I think I may be in the minority.

Last night's Cage Match went over well. We had a sizable audience -- 15 -- and both teams were enthusiastic.

This weekend:
Graduating Coldtowne Sketch Class show on Friday at 8pm
Look Cookie with Coldtowne on Saturday at 10pm

Next weekend:
Good Sunday show with Terp 2 It and Higher than Why (I host as Jimmy Suede) on Sunday at 8pm (Emo's, inside)

I conducted a really interesting interview with Jeremy Lamb and Shannon McCormick on Wednesday for the Austinist. I'll be doing daily OoB coverage this year.

Your Heart Felt Good

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:56:15 GMT

The Cage Match rocked this week. Buddy Daddy took the win against Grandpa by 1 vote (6-7). Friday's Look Cookie show was a lot of fun. I think everyone really enjoyed where we went with the characters we created in the first few scenes.

Super-connected Leah hooked us up with a professional photographer to take a Look Cookie press/theater photo. We had a full-on photo shoot out at a baseball diamond in East Austin.

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:08:12 GMT

Yesterday's practice was a lot of fun. I was really hung over, and I could tell that Leah was hurting, too. In that state, I generally make really goofy decisions and opt for crazy gimmicks over relationships and character development.

In one scene, Kerri and Ryan were pretending to be mother and son in a car on the way home from school, and I drove up next to them, gave them the finger, and drove off. In another, I trampled over everything to wrap the entire scene in the context of the Jerry Springer show and kept pretending to be an audience member talking to the participants from the stands.

I thought it was the most hilarious thing ever done. It's going to be a struggle to keep from doing that in a show.

All this talking all the time and the air fills up, up, up...

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:23:39 GMT

until there's nothing left to breathe.

Last night's show was a blast. I hated that I had to miss our show last Friday, so I was pleased when we all got on stage and clicked immediately. I love goofy shows like that. My favorite scene was Michael being from Tajanja. Cody was really well-traveled. He makes it out to Tajanja at least once a year.

I'm so happy that the Cage Match is beginning to amass momentum. I loved doing that show with Aww Shit, even thought it rarely drew a crowd of more than 5. Two shows last season were sold out, and only one didn't draw a crowd. I half-assed a lot of the production of the last season, but watching the Cage Match blossom into a viable show again is lighting a fire under my feet to draw an audience every week. I have so many ideas that I simply can't implement. It's frustrating.

I was on the brink of abandoning my column after talks with Rudius media fell apart. INSite magazine expressed interested in publishing my column in their magazine, but I don't know if that's an appropriate medium for it. Austin Daze was interested, but that seems like it might be a step in the wrong direction. The MTV appearance brought 12,000 hits to the website in less than a day over three airings of the show. If I can get consistent appearances on that show then maybe I don't need to do anything at all. After my segment, the producer told me that they want to have me back, but I don't know how to interpret that. It could be show-biz puffery.

I'm excited about Look Cookie. I'm trying to book shows at bars, but I'm not having any luck. Maybe we don't need to be doing that right now.