I'm sitting here in the St. Louis airport (I'm sure it has a more official name to it, but I have no idea what that might be) experiencing a two hour delay. Apparently there are thunder and lightning storms in Boston and all flights out of or into Logan are being put on hold. So that sucks. I usually just fly direct as I hate changing planes and the troubles associated with that, but in this case the airfare was so jacked up (Boston for the Fourth is a big destination) that I had to get a connection and leave at weird times to get a price I could work with. Soon the day will come when I'll be able to use "The Studio's" private jet to get from location to location. For now, I fly commercial...and coach at that.
So to pass my time, I'm watching "The Life Aquatic" on my laptop (downloaded legally courtesy of Movielink, thank you very much). It's OK at best, certainly not as good as Wes Anderson's previous movies. Although I was never a huge Rushmore fan...I know I'm supposed to like it, but I just didn't get what the fuss was. I think I need to rewatch it.
"Aquatic" has some good moments and Bill Murray's line delivery can make the most mundane sentence hysterical. But the movie is just slow and not that funny. Not awful, not great, just there. My favorite character is the guy who plays nothing but David Bowie songs on his acoustic guitar with all the lyrics in French.
You ain't lived until you've heard "Rock n Roll Suicide" sung by a Frenchman on a 6 string Guild.
It's 3:13 AM as I type this and I'm sitting here in my room playing some online poker. I have a 6:45 AM flight out of LAX to head back to Boston and I'm just going to pull an all nighter and leave for the airport at 5:00 AM or so. I had acting class tonight and we all went out for drinks and some eats per usual, so it wasn't worth getting home at 1:00 and then trying to sleep for 3 hours. I'd rather just stay up all night and then sleep on the plane ride. Makes it go by much faster.
So to pass the time until I leave, I'm playing some online poker. Not exactly a new thing to me as I love to play poker and play in weekly "hold em" house game tournaments and cash games as well as the internet variety. I do OK, certainly not ready to run off and join the World Poker Tour, but I do supplement my income nicely. I think I made a deposit of $11 back in March and on that initial investment I've made a return of over $600. Plus, I enjoy it...the house games much more than the online world. In the house games, we all have fun. It's a nice social setting and I love the ritual of the game. The chips, the banter, the excitement of going "all in". It's a good night out amongst friends.
Online, it's a different story. I've never seen a bigger bunch of crybabies and whiners in my life. I swear, you could bet with a pair of pocket Aces and they'd bitch and say you got lucky. The game I'm in now, I'm up $80 and there is one guy who has been insulting my play the entire game. I find it hysterical that the only time someone criticizes your playing style is when A) you are winning and B) they are short stack (have the least amount of money at the table).
Ooo, he just went all in against me with pocket Kings...unfortunately for him, I had pocket Aces. I think I can hear his head exploding from here.
There's a rumor, myth, urban legend, story I've heard many times about the origins of Scientology and it's founder L Ron Hubbard. The story goes that he was in a bar with a friend and bet him that he could create a religion and have it turning a profit in a year. "Lets sell them a piece of blue sky" is the quote I've heard most associated with this alleged story.
Now whether that story is true or not, only the two people in the bar can know. But what if say, the biggest movie star in the world, inspired by one of his idols and heroes, made a similar bet. A bet that said: "hey, I bet you that I can act like a total raving, narcissistic, know it all maniac on as many talk shows at possible and people will STILL flock to see my movie."
Ever feel so busy and like you've had no time to yourself for a week and then when you stop and take stock of all that happened, you don't really feel like you've moved forward at all?
Anyone?
No? OK, maybe it's just me...
I had three really fun commercial auditions this past week, all ending with the casting director telling me how funny I was and what a great job I did. None ending in a callback. Odd. The rest of the week or so was getting all my ducks in a row before I head back to Boston next week for a few. My friend Tom is getting married and I was able to take some time and go back home for it, so I'm really looking forward to that. Funny story (to me, your mileage may vary):
Tom calls me a few months ago to announce the pending nuptuals and tells me that certain friends will be asked to be ushers, etc. He says "I'd really like you to be in the wedding and was wondering if you'd want to emcee the reception for the wedding party indtroductions?"
"Sure, no problem. I don't want to do stand-up or anything, though"
There was a silence for a few seconds. "...oh...that was my next question"
On a total tangent, I get that a lot from friends and family..."hey do you wanna do some of your standup (the words "schtick, gig, skit, act, routine, thing" always follow) at(insert event for family and friends where standup would be totally inappropriate here) ?"
No way would I want to do that. First off, whatever the event is then becomes about me. Fine if it's my birthday or something "me-centric" but not so fine if a young woman is getting married and is looking beautiful in a gown that costs thousands.
But secondly, and most important to me...what if I suck? That's a lot of pressure and what if I just bomb? At least at a club I never have to see those people again. This is family and friends. Then I have to hang out with them all day? No thanks.
I don't need to be center of attenion all the time. In my private life, I'm more than happy to blend into the background.
That's all I can say about Chris Nolan's attempt to reboot the Batman franchise. I'm not talking about the story or script or any particulars like that. I'm talking about the tone. The mood. The feel. I'm talking about the film.
**There may be some spoilers in this, as I don't really know what I'm going to write until I blurt it out onscreen. So I'm just hedging my bet in advance. If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know anything, you should probably skip this post.**
As I've stated in earlier postings, I have been a huge Batman fan since I was a little kid. I bought the comics and read them religiously. I loved Batman in that he wasn't necessarily a super hero. He was a man, albeit a very screwed up man, who trained his body to physical perfection and went on a crusade to end crime. Well, not necessarily to end crime. As a boy, his parents were taken from him in a senseless crime and he was powerless to stop them. So now he feels he must control that and never let it happen to someone again. And it's those psychological elements that make me love the character and the endless stories you can tell with him.
That's what I feel they did so right in Batman Begins. They focused on Batman himself. How he came to be and more importantly, why he came to be. Yes, we all know that his parents were murdered and he became a bat because "criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot". But the psychological reasons that drive him, the fear and insecurities, have never really been explored in a Batman movie before.
The closest (and what as been the best representation of the character, in my opinion) they came to that is the Batman: The Animated Series show that aired in the early nineties. They did a great job with making him a dark avenger and even some episodes focused on his lingering nightmare that he failed his parents and that he fails them to this day. Great stuff and it still holds up today.
I felt this movie did that. They kept the tone consistent and the characterizations pitch perfect. This is the first time I've felt that they got Jim Gordon right onscreen. Again, B:TAS coming closest, but not as good as Gary Oldman's performance. His world weariness and just exhaustion at being one of the only good cops in a corrupt administration really rang true. Michael Caine's Alfred was the perfect combination of pithy and nurturing. And the villains were great without overpowering the movie. Ras Al Ghul has always been one of the best villains in the comic (besides the Joker) and it was good to see him on the big screen. I loved the twist with him and I feel we will see him back in future episodes, playing role of puppet master. Scarecrow was actually scary and creepy and it looks like he may be back as well. I can't believe they also snuck in Mr. Zsasz as a peripheral character, scars and all. But the movie didn't make the mistake of being about the villains as in past installments. This film focused on Batman himself and made him a character to care about and root for.
There are two aspects of the Bat mythos that I've always found fascinating and seem to be the root of the stories and I was really pleased to see that both were addressed and look to be an ongoing theme. (and I guess this is really the only spoiler of the whole post)
1) that Bruce Wayne is the mask and Batman is the real person. This is without dispute. The goofy, womaning, billionaire playboy is his cover. It's the misdirection in the same way that frumpy Clark Kent takes attention away from his non-bespecaled alter ego. Bruce Wayne died the same day his parents did. There may be traces of him here and there, but now his whole life is lived for Batman.
And 2) Escalation. What came first, the chicken or the egg. Or more precisely, what came first the super hero or the super villain. Does Batman exist to stop these psychotic, homicidal crazies from harming innocents? Or do these villains exist as a counter to Batman's presence in the first place? There's definitely a ying and yang with Batman and the Joker...each needing the other to survive. Two sides of the same coin. I hope we see some more of this theme in the sequel.
And the ending with the Joker card was a total mark-out moment for me.
Overall, I loved the movie. Was every aspect perfect, I guess not. But as an overall film, it was exactly what I wanted and the movie hit the perfect notes and got me excited for the DVD and sequel. So I'm a happy camper.
I rank this one up there with Spiderman 2, X-Men 2, Sin City and the original Superman.
The week got off to a shaky (heh) start with a 5.6 earthquake last Sunday morning that shook me awake in bed. That was my first experience with actually feeling an earthquake but as I was still half asleep, I didn't fully process it. Later this week, on Friday I believe, I was here at the office and another quake hit. 5.3 and the entire building shook. At first it feels like a huge gust of wind slammed into the building, but then you realize what happened. The large part lasted for a second or two but then for a few minutes after the building was shaking some, probably due to it just settling than another quake. I sat looking at my computer monitor and it was shaking but I felt still. So I got a little touch of a headache and motion sickness.
I never used to get motion sickness at all. I love roller coasters and amusement rides (except for those set up at carnivals...I don't trust anything that lifts me a hundred feet in the air and was just set up THAT MORNING...by CARNEYS!...but I digress...) and never felt any touch of motion sickness until recently. The thing that brought it on, the PS2 game Grand Theft Auto. For some reason, playing that game for any extended length of time makes me feel a little queasy. Must be the way the camera swings.
A lot of people are freaking out about the rash of quakes hitting the state, thinking that "The Big One" is finally upon us and California is going to sink into the ocean. That is one of the most ridiculous things ever. I can say with 100% confidence that Caifornia is not going to sink into the ocean. It's not like we're floating on the water like a duckie raft in a backyard pool. We're on the continent. The base of which extends all the way to the Earth's core. Yes there would be massive damage and destruction and tragedy, but the west coast is not going to lop off and pull a Titanic. (that is second only to the theory of the earth opening up and swallowing you).
Other than natural occurances, I had a commercial audition on Thursday for a THQ video game "Big Mutha Truckers 2" and that was a lot of fun. It was my first commercial audition in a month or two, the last being one for Old Spice's "Smell is the strongest sense" campaign. Also a really fun commercial where I got to play my guitar and jump around like an idiot in a bad garage band. In addition, I had a great show at M Bar on Friday night that had an amazing turnout and was just a blast. Lots of laughs and the show was a lot of fun.
I'm heading back to Boston this coming Wednesday for my friend Tom's wedding, plus I'll be doing some standup and seeing friends. Should be some good tales from the road. I'll keep ya posted...
I just want to thank everyone who came out to M Bar last night for my stand-up show. The house was packed and I had a blast and hope everyone who attended had as much fun. It meant the world to me to see you all there.
Also major thanks to Kurt for booking me and giving me the primo spot in the middle. Although in hindsight, I think the screwed up the show and should have gone on last. But live and learn. Next time I'm there, I'll close the show.
I really dug performing at that club...a cool, hip, jazz club vibe to it. Lots of red velevet curtains hanging and a dark look. The only thing I didn't get about the club was the wait staff. It was entirely comprised of 40 year old dudes. And they weren't the friendliest of sorts. Yeah, the first thing I think of when I think of hip LA club is a bunch of grumpy old white dudes getting me drinks. Odd.
But the show was a blast, I got out some new material, reworked some older stuff and just had fun. It's funny talking to friends who have never seen me perform before after the show is over. They always tend to see me in a new light as it must be weird seeing the guy they hang out with on stage doing standup. I used to date a woman who was a singer (amazing singer, jazz, rock...you name it) and I would watch her perform. It was always so cool to see her up there...so in her power and in command.
I'm doing a cool standup gig at M Bar (on the corner of Fountain & Vine in Hollywood) on Friday night June 17th. This is one of the rare opportunities to not only see me perform in Los Angeles, but also see me do a full 30-40 minute set. Normally, in town, it's 5-10 minute sets but this show is different.
M Bar has a really cool jazz club vibe to it and it should be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to it. The show starts at 8:00, the cover is $5 and I think that they take dinner reservations as early as 7:00. From what I know, if you are there eating dinner they don't charge you for the show.
So here's the info:
Friday June 17th 8:00 show M Bar 1253 Vine Street (323) 856-0036
If you can, I'd love for you to come out. Stop by and say hi!
Yesterday's earthquake (the first one I've actually experienced since moving here three years ago) got me thinking about some disaster movies. Thankfully, no one was hurt yesterday and there was no damage to speak of. So I'm very happy for that.
But for some reason I got in my head about all of the really bad moments in disaster-type movies, topping the list being that one defining moment of The Day After Tomorrow...
They're being chased by cold?!?!
If you haven't seen the movie and feel this may spoil your enjoyment of it, you may want to skip today's entry.
There's a point late in the movie where a second ice age hits. The temperature dropped so much that helicopters were freezing in mid-air, dropping to the ground and shattering like my Mom's Hummels tm when I had that ill-fated wiffle ball game in the living room. Our heros take refuge in this huge library (I believe) and there is a huge bonfire lit to keep away the elements. Some of them are outside for some reason or another when the cold starts hitting. So they have to race back to the bonfire and literally are CHASED BY COLD down the hallway. You could visually see the hallway icing over, steps behind our protagonists. As if that was how cold moved...in a linear fashion. It's cold here, but an inch away balmy and tropical.
He got back to the room and slammed the door on cold. Like it was a wolf nipping at his heels.
This was a cold that was dropping helicopters out of mid-flight. But Jake Gyllenhal outran it. OUTRAN IT!
I lived through my first earthquake around 8:30 this morning.
I finally feel like a real Californian.
I'm sure there have been other quakes during my three years living out here, but I don't think I've ever felt one before. This morning, in that half awake/half asleep state, my bed started shaking. Excited, I looked around but sadly, I was still alone. No nookie for Johnnie. I at first thought a truck was passing by, but I live on a little side street that's not going to be on any trucking route. It could have been a plane flying a little too low heading to the Burbank airport. It lasted for a few seconds and then that was it...I went back to sleep figuring it was just my imagination.
When I woke up for real, I went to my computer and had a couple of emails from friends "did you feel the earthquake this morning?" So it was an earthquake and looking it up on Yahoo, I saw that it was 5.6 and took place out by Palm Springs and could be felt as far south as San Diego all the way to Los Angeles.
Cool.
I always wondered if I would be scared or how to feel during one of these things. If you grew up out here I would think it's second nature. But the forces of nature I'm used to deal with snow and hurricane winds. I don't like the feeling of the earth moving and there's nothing you can do about it but ride it out. I also didn't want my Marx Bros. framed and matted movie poster to fall and give me an El Kabong on the noggin.
But apparently my reaction was the same to an earthquake as it is to most facets of my life. Huh, cool. And then I went back to sleep.
Edit: I did notice that in the past few weeks there were a bunch "what to do in an earthquake" PSAs on the radio. My friend Kurtis actually noticed this as well and it was a topic of discussion last week. Not to mention that the area where the quake hit was supposed to be the location of a "big one" last September as predicted by a seismologist at UCLA. So it appears this probably wasn't a "surprise" to many in the know.
Batman Begins...well...begins...June 15th and I can't wait. I've been a huge Batman fan since I was little and had decided that I was going to be either Batman or Indiana Jones when I grew up. I figured that both were valid career options.
(That would be a hell of an interview process..."I see your parents weren't murdered. I'm sorry, we're really looking for someone with experience." or "How are you with a bullwhip?" I did have the hat though.)
I was so excited for the first Batman movie. Tim Burton AND Batman...too good to be true. I'm a big Burton fan as well. Ed Wood is one of my all time favorites. I thought that, while there were some differences and Alfred couldn't wait to walk Vicki Vale into the Batcave (which they at least joked about in the second movie), it was a pretty good translation. Then it went all downhill from there. The Schumaker debacles making me long for the more "serious" days of Adam West and the Batusi.
It looks like Chris Nolan gets it, though. I've even heard that the Bat-suit doesn't make an appearance for the first 45 minutes. Like Spiderman did before it, it will have a slow buildup to the moment he dons the cowl for the first time. I like that. The cast is amazing and all things are pointing to it being one of the better comic book movies. I hope it's up there with Spidey, X-Men and Sin City. Here's hoping.
Everyone seems to have gotten a kick out of that "Joker's Boner" post I did a few weeks ago and my friend Rich sent me this little tidbit. I guess when you've been around for over 60 years, there are moments you aren't proud of. This would be one of them:
Phrase most commonly searched to bring traffic to my site?
Let's see....
Comedy? No.
Comedian? Nope
John Keating? Um, no (although at least this one was second, thankfully.)
The correct answer, and by a runaway huge margin, is "monkey porn".
Yup. You read it right. Last night I ran a query on my site stats to see what searches done through sites like Google and Yahoo bring people to the site. Monkey porn it is.
I have a story on my Press & Stories page that tells a tale of my trip the Cleveland Zoo when I was working the Improv a few years back. And the title of said tale...you guessed it: Monkey Porn.
Apparently there is a huge fanbase for monkey porn out there, scouring the net for any vestiges of this delicacy that they can ferret out. And my site seems to be one of their destinations. Hey, glad to help any way I can.
So here are the two stories from the Cleveland Zoo, posted for your reading pleasure and to try to score a few extra hits to the site. Sure they come for the monkey porn, but they stay for the blog. That's how I get 'em!
This just in!!!: Here are the stats of number of requests:
1. monkey porn 1,159 2. john keating 584
Pretty much a 2:1 ratio of monkey porn vs. my name!!
Monkey Porn
Monkeys are vile and nasty creatures. Yes, they are cute and almost human in the mannerisms, but they are some stanky creatures.
At the Cleveland Zoo, they have a Rainforest Exhibit. One of the highlights of the exhibit is a huge monkey encasement. It is set up not unlike an Aztec temple...there are robes and branches adorning a stone temple and ledgings. Some of the monkeys were sitting quietly, others were engaged in a "King of the Hill" battle royale on one of the ledges. But one of the monkeys was sitting very close to the glass, munching quietly on a leaf. This is the hero of our story.....
As we were watching the monkeys go about their antics, we noticed the one in front was watching us as well. After a few minutes he, um...well, he "whips it out"!! And then starts pleasuring himself. And I'm not talking about just a little diddling...this was all out monkey porn!! He had one foot up on the glass and the other on a branch...a full "V" position. And he was yanking away as if he was trying to start a lawn mower! It was disgusting...it was offensive....and I still laugh my ass off everytime I think of it! I've got your Mighty Joe Young right here!!!
Crocodile Justice
Here's an interesting little tidbit that I found at the Cleveland Zoo...I found it amusing:
There once was a tribe in Africa that practiced "Crocodile Justice". If you were accused of a crime you would be forced to swim across a croc-infested river. If the crocs ate you, then you were guilty. If you made it across unscathed, not only were you deemed innocent, but your accuser also had to give you "2 cattle".
That's exactly how it was written..."2 cattle". I don't even think that's grammatically correct! But say you already had "1 cattle." You could feed the crocs before your swim, make it across and receive 2 cattle for the swim. You'd be up one cattle.
You gotta figure that "2 cattle" has to be worth about $2000 today. I think it would be worth the 2K to watch someone you hate swim the gauntlet.
I think I am going to try to incorporate the "2 cattle" monetary system into my everyday life. If that's the case, for my week in Cleveland, I received about the hoof of the cattle.
I was just looking back through some posts (I pretty much type stream of conscious as the thoughts come to me and rarely go back and refine or check anything...so I like to go back and at least fix any typos here and there) and I realized that I said I would come back to the subject of 60 Minute Broadway a few days ago and then never did. I loves me some tangents.
The story revolves around this journeyman pro wrestler who is stuck working the independent circuit. No money, working in high school gyms in front of 40 people...that sort of things. His dream is to main event Madison Square Garden...just once. Basically, if you ever watched Saturday morning wrestling growing up there was always Hulk Hogan vs. some no name guy that didn't stand a chance...this is a story about THAT guy.
I wrote 60 about a year or so ago and was fortunate enough to get it read by some of the studios without having a lit agent (there are agents for every aspect of the business...one handles commercial auditions, another for film/tv, one for written properties...even producers, makeup people, directors, effects people...they can all have agents). The response to it was incredibly positive. To a fault, everyone loved the story, loved the characters and loved the world that was set up as it was something that hadn't been seen in movies before.
But no one wanted to make it.
Virtually across the board I would get what I like to call the "Ready to Rumble Defense" (RTRD). "Ready to Rumble really underperformed and we just don't think a wrestling movie is something we want to do."
This totally ignores one important fact...that movie was bad. Really bad. Oliver Platt was playing a championship level wrestler. And I love Oliver Platt but it was just not a good movie. I mean, there were funny parts and all but overall it turned off both hardcore fans of wrestling as well as mainstream audiences. So if you go by the RTRD, yes, a wrestling movie will not do well. But all movies that have portrayed pro wrestling (with the exception of documentaries such as Beyond the Mat and Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows) have done so in the same exact way and there is a reason audiences don't go to them. Two very specific reasons:
1) They treat wrestling as "wacky" and "goofy". Hey, I'll be the first to admit...pro wrestling ain't Shakespeare. It's a very simplified morality play. People like to use the "male soap opera" analogy and it can be very appropriate. It just seems like every time it's portrayed in movies, it's by someone who hasn't watched it since they were kids.
For example: Based on a producer reading 60, I got hired to write a screenplay based on an idea he had set in the world of pro wrestling. It was to be the story of an estranged family that grew up in the business with the youngest too small to follow his father's dreams for a family legacy, thus suffering the cold shoulder his entire life. Not the usual storyline associated with pro wrestling. He wanted to call it Wrasslin' That title conjures up every negative stereotype I mentioned above. Wacky, zany, rednecks, people who believe it's real...in sum, idiots. Not only are you going to just reaffirm what most people already think about wrestling and it's fanbase, but you are insulting and turning off the actual wrestling fans who would be the first ones to go see something like this. And the movie wasn't a comedy. It had funny moments, but it was a pretty straight forward drama with a sad ending. We ended up with the title Dream Champion which fit better, but the movie never got made. It's a shame as I really liked the story and think it would have been decent (and part of the deal was I got a supporting role and that character was a blast). I felt really bad for the producer as he believed in it with all his heart but it came down to the RTRD when final financing was coming about.
2) Wrestling is treated as a "real sport". This seems to be the biggest problem in these types of movies. William Goldman even mentions that in his Adventures in the Screen Trade when talking about the old Peter Falk movie All The Marbles. We all know it's not a real, competitive sport in the vein of baseball or basketball and trying to force that down people's throat just throws it back to the first bullet point mentioned above. It can't be about "winning that championship match", it has to be about the characters. Because while the outcomes of the matches are not "real", the pain the wrestlers go through and lives they live are very much so. These are real people really getting hurt, really going through divorces, really dedicating their life to something because they have a passion for it. That's the part that is very real, but no one ever takes a look at that. Well, I did, but that's the whole point of this post, isn't it?
In 60, I address this right away and then move on. No need to beat people over the head with it either, because that's not what is important. I know David Copperfield didn't really make the Statue of Liberty disappear. But I suspended my disbelief and enjoyed. Just like any novel or movie or TV show...if you give me an "in" to buy the characters, I'll go along for the ride.
So after hearing the RTRD so many times, I conferred with my buddy Jeff Schuetze (please check out his blog on my recommended links) and we came up with the idea of doing 60 Minute Broadway as a four issue mini series comic book. Partly to showcase it and hope it gets picked up, but mainly because it's a really good story and I adore the characters. I think anyone that reads it, wrestling fan or not, is going to feel the same way. It's written so you don't have to be a fan to dig it. We hope to have the proposal done by this summer and then we'll try to pitch it to some indie comic companies.
Apparently, Jack Black just signed on to do a movie (true story) about a Mexican priest who dons a mask and wrestles at night to earn money for his orphanage. It's going to be done by the same people who did the fantastic School of Rock. So here's hoping that the movie is a huge hit and the RTRD gets changed to: "That Jack Black movie went through the roof...do we have any scripts about wrestling?"
In a rare occurance here in Los Angeles, the Red Sox were playing on television this past week. As a Red Sox fan (from before the miracle year of 2004 thank you very much), I have to subscribe to MLB.com's online package to see games or suffer through only a handful of nationally televised games. So I chose the former but relish the chance to see them on TV when I can.
My buddy Jake and I wanted to grab some lunch and check out the game at a bar/pub. We usually hit Timmy Nolan's in Burbank but wanted to try something different. Instead this time, we went to a place in Studio City/Sherman Oaks called Irelands 32.
We walk in and it's dark. Really dark. So dark it took my eyes a few minutes to adjust from the bright afternoon sun. And there are about 8 or so "regulars" that give us the same look Eddie Murphy got entering the bar in 48 HOURS. So we ask the bartender, a very cool guy with an Irish accent, if they were serving food and if we could sit on the side in front of the TV. But there was no waitress service and that side wasn't open, so we took seats at the end of the bar. We asked if one of the TVs could be changed to ESPN and the Sox game but for some reason, never quite explained to us, because the TV facing us was connected to the big screen TV in the other room, the channel couldn't be changed. The room that wasn't open yet and no one was sitting in. Um, ok.
So we managed to get the television BEHIND us changed to the game and we sat with our backs to the bar. Now normally, we would have just finished our beer and left but for some reason we ordered food. We asked the bartender for menus and he replied "we don't have any. There's a board coming out with all the food on it." And lo and behold, a few minutes later the board made it's appearance. So we went over to it, found something to order and came back to our seats. But the bartender informed us that his "computer thingie" was not working and instructed us to walk back to the kitchen and order from the cook directly.
We walk to the back and stumble into the kitchen, at this point there's no turning back as we're fascinated by all this, and approach the cook to order. But before we could, the shakey cook informed us that his fryer had "taken a dump" and there was no fried items avalable from the menu that was JUST DRAWN UP, thus negating Jake's call on the Fish and Chips.
We return to our seats at the bar and we're just cracking up at this nightmare of a lunch trip. We just wanted to watch the game and get some food and beer! But that's when the day changed. The bartender started playing jazz and offering free beers to anyone who could guess the artist (Jake got one) and we started loosening up. And that's when we met Joe Tidwell.
Joe was this older gentleman from Mississippi I believe. Really nice guy and it turns out he's a writer. He studied with William Percy (who wrote the forward and got the book "A Confederacy of Dunces" published...one of my favorite novels) and had some plays produced with Dwight Yokem in them. He had moved away from LA and to Texas for about 10 years and now he was coming back to pursue more writing and was doing set design in the meantime. He was just this really cool older guy and he shared some stories and then asked what we did. I told him I was a comic/actor and Jake mentioned he was looking for a new job. Joe said, "That's good, always keep looking. You can never quit"
That's really good advice. Just always keep looking. Here was a guy who moved away and came back and is still working on his dreams and passions. He just keeps moving on and seemed to be an extremely happy dude. Just loving life and diggin' what he's doing. Enjoying the journey.
And sometimes, even when you're bitching about not being able to order fish and chips, you get a little flash of the real reason you came to a place.
P.S. I hope this post doesn't come across as a complaint against the bar. It is a really cool little neighborhood bar and a great place to grab a Guiness and just hang with some friends. So check it out if you're in the neighborhood.
Last night I actually did *gasp* standup comedy. For 30 minutes. For money. Ahhh, felt like the good old days.
To say I've curtailed my standup shows would be a touch of an understatement. When I was doing the road and making a living at standup, I would be doing between 200-250 shows a year. Now I'm lucky if I do 40.
It's not that I don't love standup anymore or that I somehow lost the funny and clubs stopped returning my phone calls. I just don't enjoy doing standup in Los Angeles so I made a decision to pretty much just follow my gut and do what makes me happy. I still do shows (like the one last night in Corona) but usually they are outside LA in foreign sounding places like Ventura, Inland Empire and San Diego (which I heard is translated to "whale's..."oh nevermind). I stopped "chasing" standup in LA itself. The coffee house shows and "bringers" (where you are required to not only work for free, but to also bring at least 4 people or you don't get stage time. A real treat for a working professional comedian) were just making me unhappy and didn't seem to be helping my act at all. You get really loose in that atmosphere...trying to make the comics laugh because they are pretty much the only ones in the audience. It's oddly incestuous and uncomfortable.
And the road isn't really an option anymore. I did a lot of it the first year I moved here, but then came to the realization that "hey, I'm never in town for any auditions". And since I packed up and moved 3,000 miles away from my family to try to step up a level and do more television and films, I found it counter-productive. If I wanted to just remain doing standup at clubs and colleges I would have just stayed in Boston where the gigs are plentiful. So I had to make a really hard decision and drastically cut back my performances.
So that's why, when I get the chance to perform shows now they have a whole new energy. I'm much more in the moment on stage and the jokes have a new life to them. It's fun again and not just work. That was a nice benefit.
Last night's show was pretty good. Crowd started off tight but I ended up doing a lot of off the cuff crowd work and they really got into it. I do the bit about my grandparents thinking I was gay and some guy yelled out how he agreed with him. He was wearing a visor. I said, "dude you're wearing a visor. Wear a hat or don't wear hat, but just make a decision." And the crowd was with me the rest of the way.
I know admitting that is akin to admitting I have an IQ of 9, but I don’t really care. And as a disclaimer for those who ask…yes, I do know it's not real. Last time I checked, Star Wars, Romeo & Juliet and Desperate Housewives weren’t documentaries either. I do stop short of calling it fake, though. It is definitely not fake. It may be predetermined and more show than competitive sport, but these are athletes who risk their bodies every night they are in the ring. Make no mistake about that. Ask Darren Drozdov, sitting in a wheelchair after being paralyzed from a routine move that went wrong, how fake it is. I’m sure he would have a different perspective from you.
I started watching when I was 9 years old. I would buy magazines like Pro Wrestling Illustrated (with stories as worked as the ones told in the ring) and read about wrestlers and territories that I couldn’t see on TV. They all seemed so much more exotic and exciting than my boring suburban neighborhood in Woburn, MA. I remember going to my first matches with my Mom and Dad and being terrified for weeks beforehand that Hulk Hogan was going to lose his title to Big John Studd and I would have to be there to witness it. The horror!
(Side note: Since that initial time going and realizing my fears were completely unfounded…Hogan wasn’t going anywhere…I then started becoming a fan of the heels, the bad guys. Lets face it, they could talk trash and were usually a hell of a lot more exciting. I never got into the big muscleheads…I enjoyeded the smaller, athletic guys like Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Ricky Steamboat…guys who could hold a crowd in the palm of their hand with their matches. But I digress…)
When my parents got divorced my Dad would take me and my sister to the Boston Garden once a month to see the matches. He was never a big fan, but it was a weekend out for us. We would stay at his apartment and it was something we looked forward to every month. We would sit in the first row balcony, hanging over the ring, and could see everything. Every month, right before the main event, the ring announcer would talk about the matches just signed for next month (as if the championship committee were in that very locker room at the Garden, mulling over blockbuster title matches) and I would tug on my Dad’s arm, "Can we go? Dad, come on it’s Roddy Piper!!" He would always answer 'we’ll see' and the next Monday would be at the box office picking up the tickets. He worked for the MBTA (subway system) for my entire life and was stationed right across from the Garden. It was our thing.
As I started my own career in stand-up comedy, I would still watch. Now having been exposed to the behind the scenes stuff in newsletters and dirt sheets such as the Wrestling Observer and Pro Wrestling Torch, I was hooked all over again. I found the similarities between my new career in comedy and the world of wrestling fascinating. The long road trips for little to no money just to “pay your dues”. The hierarchy of the performers on the show and the politics that didn’t always mean the best performer would headline the show. The camaraderie of the guys you worked with.
And the stories.
I don’t think it would have always been worth it, but for the stories you told and heard and experienced. The road stories are what keep you going and keep you doing it.
And that’s where 60 Minute Broadway comes in. It’s a screenplay (and soon to be a comic book mini series) I wrote about pro wrestling and it’s something that hasn’t been seen on the big screen or in comic books before. Every time pro wrestling is depicted, it’s shown as wacky and goofy. It’s never shown as real people doing something that, for their own reason, they love. And why does someone put their bodies and relationships through this? And what do they get out of it? That’s what I wanted to explore and hopefully did. I always refer to 60 as “Bull Durham set in pro wrestling”. And I hope that’s what it can be someday.
