oldeenglish:
Olde English sketch pilot.
In 2008, Olde English decided we were ready to have a TV show, and we started pitching ideas to cable channels. Most of our ideas were for themed sketch shows — my (Raphael’s) favorite was for basically a comedy version of TRL, full of original music videos, interviews with real and made-up celebrities, and youth-skewing commercials (we were about ten years too late for the format to have any cultural relevance, but we still thought it would be a lot of fun); we also pitched a road trip show where every week we film a batch of sketches in a new city as we drive across the country in a big van.
We put together the above reel as a sample of what we called our “vanilla sketch show” — just a bunch of sketches with no framing device. If you’ve seen all our videos, you’re not going to discover anything new here, other than the new intro and themed bumpers we filmed, but if you want to revisit a bunch of our favorite stuff all in a row, here’s a good place to do it. If someone had given us a TV show in 2008, this is more or less what it would have looked like.
Memories! Here’s a twenty minute package of our favorite sketches we put together way back in 2008. And while you may have seen a few of these before, I have to say that the special intro we produced for this package came out pretty cool.
A few weeks ago I wanted to audition for an upcoming Comedy Central Indecision web series. Since I was out of town, I was asked to “put myself on tape”, so I made this little video with the help of my good and very funny friends Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Frances Chewning, and Jeff Maksym.
And guess what? The next time I have an audition, I’m just going to lie and say that I’m out of town. That way, instead of going to an office building at 10 AM, waiting on a sweaty bench for an hour, fear-pooping five times, and finally being ushered into a hot little room where I am given thirty seconds in which to be as funny as possible for a bored casting assistant with a Flip cam, I get to spend an evening clowning around with my funny friends and making something I genuinely like. And then, when I don’t get the job, I still get to keep the video afterwards. Win win.
Four years ago I was a pack-a-day smoker. On May 27th, 2008, I finally became disgusted enough with myself that I quit smoking and started running. The following year I ran a half-marathon, and tomorrow I’m running the New York marathon.
I don’t say all that to toot my own horn — tooting one’s horn is unnecessary when discussing the world’s largest moving festival of self-congratulation — because the fact is that I’m a terrible runner. I’m slow, I have to stop and take a shit every three miles, and by the end of even a 5K my inner thighs are a chafed, bloody mess. But the beautiful thing about a marathon is that you don’t have to run it well. And while I’m a shitty runner, I’m good at other things, and here’s a lesson I learned from running that I think is transferrable: If you want to accomplish something that no one thinks you’re capable of, all you have to do is show up and do it.
(If you’re watching the marathon from the street tomorrow, text or call me and let me know where to look for you! 631-834-0289. If you want to track my progress so you can see when I’m coming, you can do so here or on the Marathon’s iPhone app. And if you’re not watching but want to cheer me on verbally, call me between 11AM and 5PM! I’ll be wearing my iPhone headphones, so I can answer calls hands-free, and I won’t turn down the encouragement.)
anthonyking:
huffpostcomedy:
Comedy Troupe Delivers Its Second New York Baby | New York Times
Taking her first tour on Friday night of the completed Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, known as U.C.B.East for short, in the East Village, Amy Poehler examined its renovated 124-seat performance space, its twin lobbies on Third Street and Avenue A and its momentarily immaculate bathrooms, “so clean you could improvise off them,” she said.
But being a comedian Ms. Poehler, the “Parks and Recreation” star and a principal member of the Upright Citizens Brigade troupe, eventually made her way to the bar. As she drank canned wine through a straw, Ms. Poehler was reminiscing with Alex Sidtis, troupe’s managing director, about the coming of age of their comedy-training institution.
Finally! Sad this didn’t get to happen on my watch but very excited for everyone in NYC.
The opening of UCBeast is one of the most exciting developments in New York comedy since I’ve come to the city. (So exciting that I moved to LA for three months!) I may be overstating it, but I think its potential impact on standup, sketch, and improv in the city cannot be overstated. To see live comedy recognized by the Times for once is doubly gratifying.
(Source: poehlerparty)
If you’ve spent any time in New York comedy, you know Carol Hartsell and Kambri Crews. Carol (among many other things) produces the ECNY Awards and runs countless shows; Kambri was (among many other things) the force behind Ochi’s Lounge, the much-missed independent comedy space at Comix. And seriously, those “among other things” are like, two dozen things each; they’re each accomplished comedians and performers in their own right.
In the last year, Carol and Kambri have taken over a performance space called Luca Lounge on the Lower East Side, and they’re using it to produce free, comic-run comedy shows in a performer- and audience-friendly environment every night of the week. And, again, if you are a person who has spent any time at all in the New York comedy scene, you know that that is huge. The makeup of the New York comedy world is 49% entitled club owners who only care about wringing a two-drink minimum out of tourists, 49% shitty shows in the back rooms of bars where the only audience is drunk people on dates who didn’t know there’d be a show that night, and 2% UCB and the Creek. We need more.
Carol, Kambri, and their collaborators are creating a legitimate comedy venue that respects comedians, respects audiences, and sits in the center of New York City’s nightlife district. They’re experienced, seasoned operators who know what they’re doing, and they will make it happen. However, they need a little capital for renovations. They’ve started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $8,000 they need to get the space up to snuff.
As I write this, they’re a little under $3,000 away from meeting their funding goal with just nine days left. And I can tell that a lot of people are aware of the project but haven’t chipped in yet, because the project has 292 “Likes” on Facebook, but only 84 backers. Not good enough. Carol and Kambri’s project benefits all of us, and we need to support it. So:
- If you’re a comedian in New York City, put your money where your mouth tells jokes and pony up. Skip two open mics this week, peel ten dollars off the stack of tips you got at the Times Square Red Lobster, and make an investment in your career by helping to open the new, artist-friendly independent comedy space we all so desperately need.
- If you’re a fan of comedy in New York City, skip your next visit to a shitty comedy club and chip in one-fifth of the cost of your two drinks, your half-frozen mozzarella sticks, and the mystery charge they added to your bill hoping you wouldn’t notice so that you have a place to see awesome, cheap, honestly funny comedy shows every night of the week.
- If you aren’t a comedian and hate comedy, maybe just chip in because you’re impressed that I’m showing some initiative and can-do attitude for once and you just want to be supportive of that and also you’re my parents.
- If you don’t feel comfortable marching and waving signs because the messages thereon strike you as somewhat reductive and simplistic, but you support protests anyway because they provide political leverage to issues you care about, donate to Occupy Wall Street. I know that’s unrelated but as long as I’m asking you to chip into things, hey. But after you do that, support Luca Lounge too. It’s going to be great.
I yell about food
Some dick writes:
While I often like Mark Bittman, like a lot of the recent generation of food writers (and, all too often, environmental writers more broadly), he talks down to the poor. As someone who doesn’t work two jobs, who doesn’t have to search under the couch pillows for change to buy their kids meals, and who lives a life of leisure and high-quality food, it’s real easy for Bittman to tell the poor to cook more.
… But cooking for a big family is hard work. It’s not fun for everyone. Food writers (Michael Pollan does this as well) romanticize a past of family meals. But those meals were not easy to make. They were almost always created by women who stayed at home and toiled away at running a household. Even if that situation were desirable today, and many of us would say it is not, it’s not realistic. Most families cannot survive without two incomes and even working two jobs. That doesn’t even take into account single parents.
… Bittman dismisses the idea that we don’t have time to cook because we spend an average of 90 minutes today watching TV. But if you are working 2 jobs or are depressed or are stressed out by your troubles, watching some TV after a long, hard day is simply more enjoyable than cooking. Even after I get home from the office, and my job is far less difficult than blue-collar or service labor, I usually don’t want to spend 90 minutes cooking. I want a quick meal, a beer, and a baseball game.
Plus, what do the kitchens of the poor look like? Do they have decent pots and pans? Do they have functioning stoves? Have they paid the gas bill? Are their kitchens infested with cockroaches? Not infrequently, the answers to these questions are depressing.
Bullshit. The point is valid, but the criticism is spurious. Bittman isn’t some froo-froo Whole-Foods-french-cuisine asshole or a local food fetishist like Michael Pollan — we’re talking about the most popular (and populist) cookbook author in the COUNTRY, a guy who specifically teaches people how to make simple-ass meals and has dedicated his life to the premise of “Hey, with $5 and 15 minutes you can make something fucking awesome and healthy.”
You know what’s talking down to poor people? Saying “The poor HAVE to eat shitty food, because THEY CAN’T DO ANY BETTER. They’re too poor and tired and down-trodden to possibly not eat POISON! To suggest otherwise is ELITIST!!” Bullshit. You know what ISN’T talking down to poor people? Publishing a wildly-popular article showing how cooking a simple — underline simple, I’ve made both and they took twenty fucking minutes each — meal for a large family is fucking CHEAPER than buying a sack of McDonald’s swill, thus demolishing in a single chop half of the shitty, condescending arguments that pricks like you use to justify the status quo. I expect Bittman to take on “the poor are too busy” next week, but this fuck will probably have a problem with it because it doesn’t address how, I don’t know, the poor are a noble race and Type 2 diabetes is a part of their traditional culture or some bullshit.
I mean, honestly, “watching some TV after a long, hard day is simply more enjoyable than cooking”? What the FUCK, asshole? “Plus, what do the kitchens of the poor look like? Do they have decent pots and pans?” I don’t know, dude, you’re right, the fucking lack of ninety cent PANS is the problem here. Bittman’s a fucking monster because, oh shit, he forgot about the PANS. If this guy’s going to throw shit from the sidelines he can at least suck my dick while he does it.
The problem isn’t time or money — people were busy and lazy twenty years ago too, but they also managed to be healthier. The problem is education and awareness. We need a consumer education campaign in this country to undo the decades of ruinous marketing by food companies that have specifically and methodically promulgated the myth that the only way to feed your family is by shoveling execrable garbage down their throats. And that’s what the guy you’re taking pot-shots at is trying to build, partially by yelling, “HEY, IT WOULD BE GREAT IF PEOPLE COOKED MORE” as often as he can. If the nutrition and obesity crisis is ever solved in this country, it will be because of strenuous and tireless educators like Bittman, not snarky “I’m-more-hip-to-the-poor-than-you,-gotcha!” retrograde bloggers like whoever the fuck this asshole is. Dude is doing the lord’s work and shut the fuck up if you don’t like it. Sorry for being vociferous but I’ve been editing all night and drank a pint of whiskey. PEACE.
Raphael just reminded me that the first videos Olde English ever made were parodies of Apple’s “Switch” ads. Here they are, preserved in Internet amber, complete with Ben’s original web design.
(While watching, please remember: We made these nearly ten years ago.)
There are two things I would like to say about Steve Jobs.
The first is that when my sketch group Olde English formed at Bard College in 2002, we were able to create, edit, and distribute our videos only because of the digital video revolution that Steve and Apple had a major part in bringing about. We pulled all-nighters editing sketches in a computer lab full of Power Mac G4s. We captured our footage using FireWire cables, edited our sketches using Final Cut Pro, and published our first DVD using DVD Studio Pro. Four years before YouTube, our first video to go viral was displayed using the QuickTime web plugin. None of this could have happened three to five years previously. Steve didn’t invent all of the technologies that made this possible, but he had the vision to bring them together and integrate them into a solution that, incredibly, made it possible to edit and publish professional-level video on consumer equipment. My experience creating those sketches with Olde English changed the direction of my life like nothing else has; even now, I still make a large part of my living using the skills I learned on Steve’s hardware and software. If it weren’t for Steve Jobs’ products, I wouldn’t have a career in comedy.
The second is this. People love Steve Jobs’ products because they’re cool, and sleek, and powerful, and well-marketed, yes. But we also love them because they’re honest. We live in a world where half the products we use every day have hidden motives — Facebook wants us to use it so it can sell our information to advertisers; the news is designed to make us angry enough that we’ll keep watching through the break; the junk food we eat is designed to make us desire more. But Apple products are designed simply to be good. They say, “I am endeavoring to be the best product I can be.” And, astonishingly, they usually are.
Growing up, the fundamental moral distinction that was hammered into me — and I think most kids of my generation — was that some people care about doing things that make money, and other people care about doing things that are great. Right? Radiohead is great because they try to create art; Nickelback sucks because they’re out to make a buck. It’s a facile division — whose motives are that simple? — but it’s powerful, and it dominates our lives. So if you’re wondering why people could have such love for the C.E.O. of a major American corporation — because don’t we hate C.E.O.’s? — it’s because we’ve always known which side Steve fell on. Sure, he’d like to make some money doing it — and he made a lot — but fundamentally, we could tell he was a man who was driven to create, who saw the dotted outline of something that was new and beautiful and a genuine addition to life, and who wanted to bring that thing into existence and put it in your hand.
This is a new trend where people are hiding sharp metal objects in sandwiches!! There are some real sickos in the world. Be careful out there guys!
(re: this and this)
We have a really stellar lineup at this month’s Fresh Out: Gonzalo Cordova, Tony Zaret, Alice Wetterlund, Matt McCarthy, and Sean Patton! Plus, my best friend and cool Los Angeles dude Raphael Bob-Waksberg is in town for one night only and will be co-hosting the show with me. If you miss this show you’re stupid!
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