Showtune Showcase

One of my authors (left) was showcasing the songs that he wrote/composed in NYC tonight. Singing the songs to his accompaniment was a cast of talented performers including Mark Linn Baker--yeah the curly haired one from Perfect Strangers (below on the left)--who sang a song based on a word that someone auctioned the song to be about. That word? Defenestration: The act of propelling oneself out a window. What luck! This is one of my favorite words. When I go to improv shows, I always make sure I have words to say in case the actors ask me for a theme. Those two words are always defenestration and ladle.

This was such an amazing show. It didn't even matter if you hadn't seen the plays because you pick it up from the context in the songs. Some gave me shivers and some were hilarious. And Birdland's food is excellent as always. Thumbs up across the board.

Plain Ketchup

I've been animating our 10-minute character introductions for Plain Ketchup, our podcast. It's pretty funny. It's basically American Idol for standup comedians, and we are all terribly unfunny.

Have you seen the new update? We have a e-store on Cafepress.com! You can buy shirts, bags, etc. with our logo on it here.

Also, are you following us on Twitter? You don't have to have a Twitter account to read our tweets. You just have to go to http://twitter.com/plainketchup

Georgia on my mind

Today it was decided I am going to go to Atlanta for the first week in March. Actually it was decided a long time ago, but I somehow didn't get the memo. But that's exciting! I'm a big fan of traveling, especially to places I haven't been.

Also, I've been watching Russian movies lately. I really don't know why. So far, my favorite is The Irony of Fate, The Sequel, which is directed by Timur Bekmambetov. He is now officially on my list of favorite directors. I didn't even know this was his movie. I just started watching it and I was like "Hey, I recognize this style!" I'm not a fan of rom com, but I was laughing out loud at this one. This guy breaks into this woman's apartment and when she comes home, he pretends he's drunk and got there by accident. Actually, I'm not really sure that's true. His father's friends got him drunk on purpose so that he would wind up accidentally in this apartment, and his first act is to use pepper spray as deodorant. You can watch it on YouTube here.

New podcast animation is coming along. Very funny. And I'm collecting artists and animators to help. Any good drawers want to be part of the ketchup team?

Weekend January

Had a super weekend. Went to the Met Museum of Art with a friend and looked at photos and instruments (no balalaika, what?). Ran into some people I'd seen a couple days before which is a ridiculous coincedence considering the size of this city and the minute number of people I actually know. A friend came to town causing me to meet lots of people I'd never met before. I videoed his keynote speech at the writers digest conference (see left), and I may be appearing in his web series...thing. I also put some art on my wall (see below) that I found online.

Also, Michael Palascak who said he'd guest star on our podcast was on Letterman this week (See below). Plain Ketchup now has a Cafe Press where you can buy stuff with our logo on it. Yay. Oh, and Idiot Abroad premiered in the States on the Science Channel--funny stuff.

Golden Globes

A lot of press is fake, but man, does the press about the Golden Globes really hammer it home. They are lying through their teeth to say they are shocked at how Ricky Gervais did not take the awards ceremony seriously enough. The only reason they hired him is because they knew he'd be offensive, and he's been announcing for months that he planned to be more offensive than last year. I admit, I was expecting it to be MUCH more offensive. I've seen his standup (Carnegie Hall!), I know what he's capable of, so the fact that the press is pretending like the HFPA and celebrities are in a huff about it is a terribly poor lie. They did the same thing last year, said that McCartney was upset when he wasn't. He's not actually in trouble--it just makes for a more interesting story, and maybe the HFPA like that because it gets them press and separates the offensive things said from themselves, even though they hired him knowingly.






I liked Colin Firth's speech, but Geoffrey Rush should have won an award :(

New Years Special - Plain Ketchup

It took two weeks to animate this. I hope you enjoy it.

Comedy

1. I've realized that an animated podcast really is the perfect medium. Today I rememberd when all the students at NYU were required to invent a magazine. I thought up one that was about comedy--interviews with comedians about their craft, etc. (okay, much like Punchline, the online magazine). My idea didn't get picked and nothing became of it. Then I read What The Bleep Do We Know, which has nothing to do with comedy, but is laid out in a really cool way, and I thought it would be cool to do a book on comedy with all the sidebars and stuff like this book. But now I see that you can interview someone, keep the actual audio of the interview, and make it more fun to watch than just a documentary. The only thing is animation takes a really long time, so I am now trying to recruit animators and drawers to do a little here and there to help get the episodes out faster.

2. I started reading a book called Satiristas, which is a book of interviews with comedians about comedy. It's so good! Each interview is only a couple pages long, so you never get tired of a subject. I've only read about four interviews so far, but it's really fascinating stuff, even if I don't know who the comedian is.

3. I went to a comedy show today--not a standup or improv show. It was scripted, and there was a little audience involvement. It's called "The Annihilation Point." It was a corny sci-fi spoof. They basically take all the twists in all the sci-fi movies and combine it into an hour and a half long story. It was much better written than I expected. I could tell you some jokes, but most of it is in the delivery. Here's my favorite though:

Person 1: Explain a time paradox to our audience.
Person 2: Okay. It's like...say I have this red notebook. If I go back in time and paint the notebook blue, then what color would this notebook be?
Person 1: Blue.
Person 2: No!!! Purple!

There is some footage online. I think it's 2 years old. But it is the same actors:

Meat in my Teeth

I don't think I've posted this on my blog yet. Please make this video go viral. Cheers.

Things I watched today

1. Looking for Ms. Locklear
This is Rhett and Link's independent film/documentary. I hadn't seen it yet because it costs like $15 bucks. But now it's available as a rental for $2 from YouTube. I hadn't heard of rentals on YouTube before. It makes me nervous. It's fine for now because the things that are going up are going to be things that wouldn't have gone on YouTube anyway, like this film. But watch that slippery slope. Either YouTube will start making us pay for a little more inch by inch or people will realize that they can make money by charging people for their YouTube content. And then no more good free videos.

But the movie was really heartwarming. R&L meet a lot of interesting (and weird) people on their quest to find their first grade teacher. They end up getting involved in a political movement on their journey.



2. Ricky Gervais Show season 2 episode 1
You can watch it here:

This episode includes Karl's movie pitch which is hilarious. And someone has actually put together a real trailer for it:


3. Splice
I saw this when it first came out, but I got it on DVD. They had a special director behind the scenes bonus feature, which I liked because Vincenzo Natali is my favorite director. But no commentary? There are so many undertones to the movie, I hope they don't get lost on people.

Twitter

Please follow Plain Ketchup on Twitter. I'm going to try and stick in a lot of funny one-liners that I (and Lindsey) can come up with.

http://twitter.com/plainketchup





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Actor Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011)

I have to say that I was still holding onto the dream that Pete Postlethwaite would be Sam Vimes someday. (Sam Vimes is my all time favorite fictional character.) Terry Pratchett, creator of Sam Vimes, said that even though the Discworld artist Paul Kidby depicts Vimes like a Clint Eastwood, he always imagined him as a Pete Postlethwaite, which I'm sure is what inspired the illustrator for Pratchett's kids book, Where's My Cow (see below).

Speilberg said he was the best actor in the world. Inception will be much sadder now.

Winter Break

Actually, yes you can still have Winter Break even when you are out of school...if there is a blizzard and all the flights are cancelled. I went home for Christmas and ended up staying a week longer than intended. It actually worked out though because I got to have Christmas on Christmas, New Years on Christmas Eve, second Christmas on New Years Day, record a podcast, and watch 26 hours of Lost with my brother.

Meanwhile, Lindsey and I are plotting to take over the world with our possible new LLC.