Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Rebirth of a Comic Genius
(note--an old post at DA--at least 2 of the links here are no longer active...but...)
Well, so whatever made me think I was going to have enough time to do this every day? Doesn't matter so very much, because I'm fairly happy with 12 entries in 3 weeks, and it does make me put something together, even if it is to no-one's amusement other than my own (though I'm gonna buy myself some seriously potent intoxicants when that view counter hits the triple digits--not because the occasion will be especially worthy of it, but because big round numbers make good excuses to buy potent intoxicants...). BUT, this week it's all about the next show, which is the one I've kinda put together here in town, and which is celebrating its 1st birthday this Thursday! So maybe the big one hundred and the birthday celebration will coincide and I can just make it a night out...
maybe not, but then, I'm not just real concerned with traffic, just having a place to bang out observations and collect web-weirdness...
Speaking of which, if you haven't recieved it yet, Andy Kaufman is alive.
Andy Kaufman is alive?
Well, follow the links below, in the sequence given, because if you mix them up, you will detract from your web pleasure, let me assure you. Your choice.
Link 1
Link 2 (this is the same one embedded in link 1, so if you went there already, you can skip this one...
and (drumroll) Link 3
Well, in any case, it couldn't have come at a better time, because my next article is centered around Laughter (as if you haven't been told that often enough...) and so I'm busy compiling all sorts of nonsense centered around humor. Kaufman being a HUGE hero of mine (and no, Milos Forman did NOT get it right in 'Man On the Moon.') ever since I caught his act in the third ever episode of Saturday Night Live...this was Kaufman at his absolute best, and suffice it to say, I think he was bloody brilliant and waaaaay beyond anything his audience could really get a handle on. What's interesting about his whole career is that it probably would have played out very differently during the era before television, because he would not have been hornswaggling such large audiences...you can pull this shit on a hundred people and make it last a lifetime, but on live television...a different creature. Because he was all about surprise.
One day I will have to write up a real homage to this man. In the meanwhile, for anyone who does NOT know this man's work, here's somewhere to go.
Aaaand...here's an emerging talent... ...emerging talent? Hardly, and perhaps many DA denizens are familiar with this man's work, but I've encountered one of those odd little cultural pockets around this fella's works, because Americans (where he is from) are just now getting to know this fellow, ten years after he died, but everyone I ask over here says 'Do I know Bill Hicks? What do you mean do I know Bill Hicks?'--meaning that they, of course, know Bill Hicks, and find it appalling that I would feel like I needed to ask. I'm just barely starting to get comfortable with this guy's stuff, because I'd not encountered it before...but, worth a search. There is one site that I've found (actually, that I was given) where you can access some audio of this man, to be found here.
(update--see sidebar under 'just fun' for link to 'Sacred Cow productions, which contains a whole page worth of Hicks video, of varying quality...)
On the comedy gig, what can I say besides it was fucking great. Not me, especially, though I did all right, I could see plenty of places where I could use a lot of work, but it was a cool challenge, I'd never held an audience for that long before (unless, of course, they were trapped in a classroom somewhere, and that does NOT count), and it was an incredible feeling, to be witness to the instantaneous feedback loop provided by that medium. Either they laugh or they don't--and I got a few big laughs in the course of this. I also got an audience that was starting to feel taxed at the end of 30 minutes, so it wasn't all unrelentingly bright--it was just, seeing that process in motion, and knowing that I could set that process in motion, was very cool. I'd go for it again, though I've enough of a ram-rod up my ass to wonder how in the hell I would manage something that called for heavy-duty impromptu skills, like, say, a legitimate heckler. I suspect that's largely a matter of practice...but that means facing one down, and that's just one more thing to be scared shitless of. But I enjoyed it enough that I just might go in for the same again in the future. Perhaps the near future, because there's a group of crazies here in town who want to get some street theatre rolling for August--straight from the ground up, words on paper to performance with street audience in 3 months. Which may provide yet another venue.
In the meantime, it's all about the 1st birthday of the Absolute Beginners, where I will be playing host after a 2 month hiatus from those duties (someone else took them over in order to let me do the performance thing--prior to that, I was in the rather unenviable position of both hosting and being one of the acts...not easy, believe me...). I'm cool with that, because last Thursday was pretty full on, emotionally. As I don't envision bursting into any scenes in the real near future, I'm good with working with a little slower pace for this week. AND, I'm about delirous with happiness simply for having kept the show going for a full year, which was all I'd hoped for it when, after our first show, we agreed to put on a second one. It's proven to be much, much more than that within that year, because I've found a place where there are some genuinely talented people that happen to be sharing meat-space, and that truly enjoy each other's company. And I've been pushed in directions I might not have gone as a result--of course! It's always about growing--which, I think, means doing shit and taking all the errors on board with the times you hit the thing square on the head. It means doing shit you don't necessarily think you can do.
Of course.
I'd meant to describe some of the denizens of this pocket of the world, but I haven't quite gotten there, have I? So, that for next time. Might let me end one of these passages without lapsing back into a moral, eh?
Okay, many more words to bang out today--and back again later with more.
--tchitch
Well, so whatever made me think I was going to have enough time to do this every day? Doesn't matter so very much, because I'm fairly happy with 12 entries in 3 weeks, and it does make me put something together, even if it is to no-one's amusement other than my own (though I'm gonna buy myself some seriously potent intoxicants when that view counter hits the triple digits--not because the occasion will be especially worthy of it, but because big round numbers make good excuses to buy potent intoxicants...). BUT, this week it's all about the next show, which is the one I've kinda put together here in town, and which is celebrating its 1st birthday this Thursday! So maybe the big one hundred and the birthday celebration will coincide and I can just make it a night out...
maybe not, but then, I'm not just real concerned with traffic, just having a place to bang out observations and collect web-weirdness...
Speaking of which, if you haven't recieved it yet, Andy Kaufman is alive.
Andy Kaufman is alive?
Well, follow the links below, in the sequence given, because if you mix them up, you will detract from your web pleasure, let me assure you. Your choice.
Link 1
Link 2 (this is the same one embedded in link 1, so if you went there already, you can skip this one...
and (drumroll) Link 3
Well, in any case, it couldn't have come at a better time, because my next article is centered around Laughter (as if you haven't been told that often enough...) and so I'm busy compiling all sorts of nonsense centered around humor. Kaufman being a HUGE hero of mine (and no, Milos Forman did NOT get it right in 'Man On the Moon.') ever since I caught his act in the third ever episode of Saturday Night Live...this was Kaufman at his absolute best, and suffice it to say, I think he was bloody brilliant and waaaaay beyond anything his audience could really get a handle on. What's interesting about his whole career is that it probably would have played out very differently during the era before television, because he would not have been hornswaggling such large audiences...you can pull this shit on a hundred people and make it last a lifetime, but on live television...a different creature. Because he was all about surprise.
One day I will have to write up a real homage to this man. In the meanwhile, for anyone who does NOT know this man's work, here's somewhere to go.
Aaaand...here's an emerging talent... ...emerging talent? Hardly, and perhaps many DA denizens are familiar with this man's work, but I've encountered one of those odd little cultural pockets around this fella's works, because Americans (where he is from) are just now getting to know this fellow, ten years after he died, but everyone I ask over here says 'Do I know Bill Hicks? What do you mean do I know Bill Hicks?'--meaning that they, of course, know Bill Hicks, and find it appalling that I would feel like I needed to ask. I'm just barely starting to get comfortable with this guy's stuff, because I'd not encountered it before...but, worth a search. There is one site that I've found (actually, that I was given) where you can access some audio of this man, to be found here.
(update--see sidebar under 'just fun' for link to 'Sacred Cow productions, which contains a whole page worth of Hicks video, of varying quality...)
On the comedy gig, what can I say besides it was fucking great. Not me, especially, though I did all right, I could see plenty of places where I could use a lot of work, but it was a cool challenge, I'd never held an audience for that long before (unless, of course, they were trapped in a classroom somewhere, and that does NOT count), and it was an incredible feeling, to be witness to the instantaneous feedback loop provided by that medium. Either they laugh or they don't--and I got a few big laughs in the course of this. I also got an audience that was starting to feel taxed at the end of 30 minutes, so it wasn't all unrelentingly bright--it was just, seeing that process in motion, and knowing that I could set that process in motion, was very cool. I'd go for it again, though I've enough of a ram-rod up my ass to wonder how in the hell I would manage something that called for heavy-duty impromptu skills, like, say, a legitimate heckler. I suspect that's largely a matter of practice...but that means facing one down, and that's just one more thing to be scared shitless of. But I enjoyed it enough that I just might go in for the same again in the future. Perhaps the near future, because there's a group of crazies here in town who want to get some street theatre rolling for August--straight from the ground up, words on paper to performance with street audience in 3 months. Which may provide yet another venue.
In the meantime, it's all about the 1st birthday of the Absolute Beginners, where I will be playing host after a 2 month hiatus from those duties (someone else took them over in order to let me do the performance thing--prior to that, I was in the rather unenviable position of both hosting and being one of the acts...not easy, believe me...). I'm cool with that, because last Thursday was pretty full on, emotionally. As I don't envision bursting into any scenes in the real near future, I'm good with working with a little slower pace for this week. AND, I'm about delirous with happiness simply for having kept the show going for a full year, which was all I'd hoped for it when, after our first show, we agreed to put on a second one. It's proven to be much, much more than that within that year, because I've found a place where there are some genuinely talented people that happen to be sharing meat-space, and that truly enjoy each other's company. And I've been pushed in directions I might not have gone as a result--of course! It's always about growing--which, I think, means doing shit and taking all the errors on board with the times you hit the thing square on the head. It means doing shit you don't necessarily think you can do.
Of course.
I'd meant to describe some of the denizens of this pocket of the world, but I haven't quite gotten there, have I? So, that for next time. Might let me end one of these passages without lapsing back into a moral, eh?
Okay, many more words to bang out today--and back again later with more.
--tchitch
# posted by Gene Justice @ 11:44 PM 
