Comedian John M. Keating -

Mar27

Jeff, Who Lives at Home

by John on March 27th, 2012 at 11:19 am

This past weekend we experienced one of the rarest events to hit Los Angeles. Rain. 99% of the year, the weather is sunny and gorgeous but every now and then it rains and the city goes bat-shit crazy. We lost power for a few hours so we decided to go get some food and see a movie.

Our first stop was the Sherman Oaks Galleria but they had also lost power, prompting close to a thousand people panicking to exit the parking garage all at once. We were then forced venture “over the hill” to Hollywood in hopes that they still had power at the Arclight. We avoided the masses of people there to see The Hunger Games by using the Arclight iPhone app to buy our tickets. It’s nice to be able to walk in, see a massive line of people and then just order the tickets on your phone. Plus we saved 2$! VICTORY!weather in South California is gorgeous but every once in awhile we get some heavy rain and the entire area goes bat-shit crazy. It’s anarchy as citizens drive off the road to avoid the stuff falling from the heavens. We lost power so, instead of sitting in the dark, we decided to go get some food and see a movie.

We got tickets for Jeff, Who Lives at Home (directed by the Duplass brothers) and it was one of the more surprising movies I’ve seen in awhile. Amber and I really loved it. The film stars Jason Segal and Ed Helms as Jeff and Pat, disparate brothers and sons of Sharon (Susan Sarandon). Pat is in an unfulfilling marriage to Linda (Judy Greer) and looks to be in a dead end management job. Jeff, as the title states, lives at home in his mother’s basement. Society would say that Pat is the one who has grown up and has his life in order but the movie paints it another way completely. Jeff, as ersatz philosopher, is a believer that all things in life happen for a reason, that there are no wrong numbers . To illustrate this, the movie is kicked into motion by Jeff receiving a wrong number call looking for a person named Kevin. From there, we follow Jeff on a journey from event to seemingly unconnected event as he goes on about his day and tries to figure out where his destiny lay.

If the above seems vague, it’s because I don’t want to spoil any of the really wonderful surprises in the movie. The commercials portray this as a strict comedy and I thought it was going to be a Big Lebowski retread. The movie is nothing like that. Yes, it is funny and weird and there are even some moments that would be considered slapstick. Overall, though, the film is existential. It’s not about making fun of this loser as it is about living in the moment and not taking things for granted. Segal is such a likable, subtle actor and he really does some tremendous work in this movie. His opening monologue, alone, about his love for the movie Signs is some of the best work I’ve seen him do. It’s funny, sad and hopeful all at the same time and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get some kind of award recognition next year.

If you are looking for a funny, sweet, hopeful little movie as an alternative to the big Hollywood blockbusters that are going to be hitting movie theaters this Summer, I really recommend giving Jeff, Who Lives at Home a try.

└ Tags: arclight, duplass, ed helms, jason segal, jeff who lives at home, judy greer, power outage, sherman oaks galleria, susan sarandon

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Feb13

Boyfriend Spray

by John on February 13th, 2012 at 4:49 pm

Posted In: Blog

This is a video I appeared in for Comediva a few weeks back. It stars Jeanine Mason from SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. Click on the image to check it out. I appear at the end of it.

"You've never smelled so unavailable"

└ Tags: boyfriend spray, comediva, comedy, so you think you can dance

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Jan30

(North) Hollywood Ending

by John on January 30th, 2012 at 1:13 pm

Posted In: Blog

Me, Cameron, America, Karen, Jamie, Chance, Raleigh

“In the end? Nothing ends…nothing ever ends” – Dr. Manhattan; Watchmen

I’ve never been good with endings. It doesn’t matter if it was a good book or just a good time spent with friends, I always hated when it ended. I think it goes back to summers down Cape Cod when I was a little kid. My grandparents had a motor home in a seasonal campground and my sister and I would spend a large portion of time between June and September there. There were a group of kids that I would hang out with who also spent most of, if not all of, the summer there as well. I only got to see them during the summer because they lived in exotic, far off places named Brockton or Milford. In reality, their homes were only 40 minutes at most from where I lived but when you’re a kid without a driver’s license they might as well have lived on Mars. We’d all hang out, chase girls, go to the beach or play video games at the “rec hall”. Every year I looked forward to the summer at the same time I feared it’s ending. I hated the Jerry Lewis telethon because it signaled the end of the summer for me and having to say goodbye to my friends for another year.

I felt very similar to that on Sunday night when She Wrights wrapped up it’s three week run at the Secret Rose Theater in North Hollywood. I was a part of a four-person ensemble, one act play entitled Let’s Have a Baby. The play was written by Jamie Lou Moniz and directed by America Young. I’ve been friends with America ever since we shot the Retroland pilot together. We hit it off and have often talked about doing some projects together. When she asked me if I’d be interested in this, just the fact that she was involved had me 95% convinced.

What I wasn’t expecting was how awesome the other actors were going to be. Raleigh Jones plays my wife and Cameron Bender and Karen Forman act as a sort of Greek Chorus, playing multiple parts as well as fantasy sequences of what is happening in Raleigh’s head. All of this is accompanied by improvised guitar and keyboards by Chance Villegas. It was truly an ensemble in every sense of the word as removing one person would cause the entire house of cards to crumble. I think the whole play lasts 20 minutes and in that time there are about 11 scenes, light cues, sound effect cues and a countless number of props. It was kind of a beast.

The gang with our stage manager Melissa Gilleece

We had about two rehearsals before the dress rehearsal. The dress rehearsal was the first time we would have the props, light/sound cues, music and be performing in that theater. To say it was a debacle is an understatement. Afterwards, the entire cast looked like we had just opened up the big box on Christmas morning to find a complete set of underwear and socks. This was not going to go well.

But it did. Dress rehearsal and opening night were light years apart and we all pulled it off. That began four weeks of some of the most fun I’ve had as an actor, yet. The shows were great with even the worst of them still getting plenty of laughs. What really stood out to me, though, were the people. All seven of us really bonded and I’m thrilled to have all of them as good friends now and to have shared this experience. It was so much fun being on stage with them, amid all of the hectic changes and cues and just having a blast. I knew if I screwed up I just had to look at Raleigh, Karen or Cam and we’d be back in the game. Even when things did go wrong (like a burping baby sound cue resulting in the baby flushing a toilet, playing a song, flushing the toilet again before eventually getting to the burp) it didn’t matter. We made the most of it and were just having a great time performing. The audiences seemed to really pick up on that. I’ve wanted to find a group to create stuff with for quite awhile now and I think this is the beginning of such a group. We just all worked really well together and lucked into a great chemistry.

I didn’t write this, though, to say how great we all are (even though everyone I mentioned IS great). I wrote it to more or less to set up one point:

I’m really going to miss them.

I know we’ll keep in touch and I’m pretty confident all of us will be working on various projects together. But it won’t be this project, in this way. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing but I wanted to mark it’s passing. I’m going to miss our Lollipop Guild dance as we got ready to go out. I’m going to miss the myriad of inside and running gags we had between us. I’m just going to miss hanging out with them on a weekly basis.

I feel really fortunate to have worked with every one. They are just good people, simple as that. One of the reasons I wanted to get into acting is that collaboration and feeling of belonging that you get during a play or on set. This show was exactly that. I’m looking forward to beginning many new endings with all of them.