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Tag: comedy
Kevin Allison, Adam Gardiner, Dale Cooper – Episode 3
Dale Cooper: I don’t have a smart phone. I can’t {tweet back at my fans}.
Me: How do you run Grindr? I met you on Grindr.
Dale Cooper: I have an iPod touch. I don’t know my way around New York, but if I can find WiFi – I can route my way around. If I need to get fucked I can jump on Grindr. But I don’t have that constant… internet pressure… notification this and txt here and whatnot.
Kevin: Yeah. It changes your life.
Dale: It does and I’ve seen that. Going back to porn – I’ve been at a table full of performers and producers and we’ll be at a long table and there will be nine of us and everyone is on their smart phones…
Kevin: Yeah…
Dale: And they’re not txting each other they’re communicating with other people. I don’t know if they’re ‘checking in’ at the location or what…
Me: I had to start doing that with my improv students. I had to start saying, there’s no iPhone use. I’ll pick up my iPhone but just to check what time it is so we can go on break. I had to be very stern with a certain class I’m teaching right now because there’s a couple of ADHD students – they’re very talented, I like them a lot, but if I don’t – I have to be like an old school teacher with them. “No grooming yourself! Stop combing your hair! Don’t talk when I’m talking! Now these are my notes…”
Dale: Ruler smacking… That teacher-student kink thing?
(laughter)
Dale: Put on the dunce cap!
(laughter)
Me: “Now clean the classroom! NO ONE’S BLOWING ME!!!”
(laughter)
Kevin: “I couldn’t help but notice no one’s BLOWING ME!!”
(laughter)
Dale: It’s gotten to the point with smart phones where I want to get a watch, just so I can check the time without giving the appearance that I’m on my phone. That’s kind of silly. Who gives a fuck? I mean, we’re all social creatures, so I guess we all give a fuck in some way or another.
Me: I suppose so! Kevin, I want to talk about storytelling. You kind of self-actualized a couple of years ago and you took yourself from a point of… you were almost ready to give up comedy altogether.
Kevin: I actually DID. I did give up comedy – after The State broke up I had always been the black sheep, you know the middle child that was off in his own universe?
You know they say that when Mel Brooks was writing on Your Show of Shows with Woody Alan, and Neil Simon and Sid Ceasar – they would always laugh like hell at his sketches in the writer’s room and say, alright, well, we can’t use that! I was that guy in The State. Everyone loved my stuff – we could never put it on TV.
Me: Larry David had the same problem on SNL.
Kevin: Oh. Yeah! So when the group broke up, I was like, what do I do with myself now? There’s a part of me that’s super polite and submissive and Midwestern and – a Catholic boy from Ohio. And a part of me that’s raunchy and kinky and a madman and likes experimenting with drugs and all that… So finally after 12 years of starving trying to do [character based] comedy, I did give up. I went into publishing.
(pause)
Then I slowly realized, no. I have got to express myself somehow.
(pause)
There’s a part of me that needs to express myself not solely in terms of comedy… under no restrictions. I don’t have to be making people laugh every 8 seconds.
Me: No!
Kevin: So when I first got up onstage and told a true story Michael Black said, you’ve got to drop the act and start speaking from the heart as yourself. I said, it’s too risky. And he said, exactly. Risk is where the good stuff comes from.
Me: Right.
Kevin: So I tried a story onstage the next week, and it was all about how I tried to prostitute myself (when I was 20), and it didn’t go very well. But the story went GREAT!!
Stanley, Who Gets Himself In Awkward Situations
Here’s a video a few of my friends from The Magnet Theater made. It’s super funny.
Have a good weekend!
The Made Up Musical
Hey folks.
It’s Friday, which means it’s time for The Made Up Musical. Every week I do a show at The Magnet at 10pm.
We interview a ‘notable New Yorker’ for about 20 minutes. Then we do a musical based on that information.
This week’s New Yorker is Giulia Rozzi. She’s an incredible storyteller and comic. She’s also a hell of a feminist. Most recently her career has taken off, because of a show she does around the country called Stripped Stories.
“This themed night of hilarious sex stories has been playing monthly to sold-out audiences since it first began in January 2007. With guests spanning from award winning comedians to regular folks who have never set foot on a stage, Stripped Stories pleases both critics and audience members alike. Each month Giulia and Margot enable audience members to laugh at their own sexual misadventures via the brave guests who bare their souls on stage. With rave reviews from Time Out NY, The Village Voice, Nerve.com and many others, Stripped Stories has become a must see comedy event. The show has been honored with an ECNY nomination for Best Variety Show and was selected to be part of the prestigious NY Comedy Festival. Each show features a comedian, a non-comedian, and a musical act revealing hysterically honest stories about their sex lives plus an interactive jaw-dropping game of “never-have-I-ever” and an audience interview.”
Giulia is a friend of mine from way back. The show’s only 7 bucks. We’ll all hang out afterward and grab a beer with the audience.
Should be fun. 10 pm. Magnet. Every Friday. The Made Up Musical.
You should come.
Kevin Allison, Adam Gardiner, Dale Cooper Episode 2
Me: Did you ever go through a Vally of the Shadow of Death with RISK?
Kevin: I was terribly paranoid during the first few months. But then when I stopped [relying on the safe distance of my childhood stories] and started talking about my kinky stories.
Me: “When I was a kid I shit on a Frisbee!!!”
Kevin: Yeah, yeah. But the first time I sort of sat down in front of the mic and told a story about something I was wrecked about right then, right now and when I pressed send I was terrified. I was like, what is the comedy community going to think of me? What might my parents eventually think of me? What might anyone in the entertainment industry think of me?
(pause)
Kevin: My show… is kind of a philosophical “Fuck You,” to that way of thinking.
Me: Absolutely. I felt that way about PIEFOLK. I had been doing comedy for more than 10 years. East Village Boys asked me to pose apron only. I thought, all these straight, white hetero-normative comics are never going to let me live this down. Also, my Mom – she’s going to see this and go – I guess he’s not really a comedy person. I guess he’s just a porn star. Overcoming that shame. Overcoming the idea of ‘what will people think?’
(pause)
I always have to brush up that creeping voice inside me that says ‘No one will do your site and no one will take your seriously.’
Kevin: Oh, God, yeah…
Me: But then what I found is… Well, first of all prostitution, porn, all that stuff [that we talk about or traffic in, or tell stories about in our professions] – that’s in the Bible!
(laughter)
Kevin: Old testament!
Me: People have been bored of that for thousands of years!!
(laughter)
Them: Right right.
Dale: Sorry to interrupt. Speaking of RISK. That’s any internet exposure. People now with Facebook, Twitter, etc. – you’re in a constant state of managing risk. What photos [will I allow] to get out there? You have to constantly police your online identity because it has repercussions.
Kevin: That’s a great point. I feel like we’re on the avant guard – the people who are saying – you’re being so self conscious about what you’re choosing to put out there into the world, and you know what? We’re choosing to put it ALL out there.
Me: Not all of it. There are certain things.
Kevin: Yeah yeah yeah.
Me: I never show penis or sack on my site. I never want my grandmother – my mom and dad regularly read my site and I don’t want them to see my nut sack.
Dale: They’ve seen it before.
Me: They have. But it’s been 30-someodd years since they’ve seen it. And they don’t want to see it again.
Dale: That’s understandable.
Dale: (to Kevin) I was going to ask you because you brought up kink and whatnot. Does kink play – dom and sub – come into play in your everyday life as a performer? Does doing kink make your more true to yourself? Is it also just playacting?
Kevin: I have not been in enough serious ‘scenes’ with super serious kinksters where I have felt like I’ve taken the role play seriously enough to feel like I went into subspace, or to feel like there was a part of my psychology that I went into – It happened, once where I had an out of body experience where I sort of found myself being submissive in a way that I never thought I would enjoy. I was basically bowing at someone’s feet and worshiping him like an emperor. Smelling his shoes. Getting whipped. All that sort of stuff… [It put me] in touch with a part of my psychology that I didn’t know was there.
(pause)
Kevin: It was very early on into my getting into kink. I shared it immediately on the podcast.
Me: That was a touching story. The way that you tell it now is sort of matter of fact, but when I listened to it on the RISK podcast I was running in McCarren park and I literally had to stop so I could cry.
Dale: Wow.
Kevin: Yeah. It took me back to being a little boy, basically. It was very emotional.
(pause)
Kevin: Since then I’ve been asking when can I meet a kinkster who takes things seriously enough, and is into the psychological side of things enough that I can go back into that mysterious realm? It’s difficult to say. You can’t really force that type of thing. It’s kind of an adventure.
Kevin Allison, Dale Cooper, Adam Gardiner – Episode 1
Me: What’s being a porn actor like? What about your fans?
Dale: Well, actually most of what I do now is basically research and reading. I have a wish list that my fans can sort of provide my reading material for me. The wish list is very common for adult films, for fans to get things for the actors. I only have books on there. It keeps me very busy reading and writing notes.
Kevin: Wow! Where are these ‘wish lists?’
Dale: It’s on Amazon. I actually feel kinda bad – there’s a really awesome communist bookstore in Baltimore called Red Emma’s. (Shout out!) I was hoping to get them to be the purveyors of the books, but them being a small business… they can’t. You can’t argue with the convenience of Amazon.
Me: If you get any bigger will you put cars on your list?
Dale: I made a decision to just have it be books.
Me: Yeah, but those things grow and change and evolve as you grow as an artist!
(laughter)
Dale: Well if anyone out there has a couple thousand dollars lying around they don’t need!
Me: There you go! NOW you’re being a capitalist! So, Kevin – you’ve been able to sort of ask the universe for something and get it on your podcast, right?
Kevin: Yes indeed. RISK – the whole idea is that people come on and tell stories that they can’t tell anywhere else. You couldn’t tell them on NPR or you’re not even supposed to share in mixed company – some of the stories are really emotional, some are X-rated and some are just… ridiculous!
Me: Ha!
Kevin: I have told a few stories about my recent explorations into kink and there was an episode several months back where I said, oh, let me just put this out there: I would really love a naked Asian housecleaning boy.
(sheepish laughter)
Me: AND YOU GOT ONE!
(more laughter)
Kevin: And I got one. Now you have to understand there’s a context here. BDSM service kink is common. There are a lot of people who are into cleaning your house and getting a sexual charge out of it. The Asian part – that was just part of my own personal, you know… I’m attracted to Asian guys.
Me: You and I share an appreciation for Asian faces and bodies.
Kevin: Well I felt bad, because it sounded like I was saying… you know, ‘I want an Asian to come clean my house.’
Me: Did it? Because, if you were into gingers and said that no one would blink, right?
Kevin: Right. Right, right. What I meant was I would like someone who was into this sort of thing to contact me. A kid from Malaysia did! He was 23 years old… was going to be a student at Parsons. He was like, I’m moving to the States, I’m super into this, I saw you also on the BDSM sites. Let’s start having Skype sessions and talk about how we can make this happen! And… he did move in with me about a month later, and you know what? I was too… damn… nice.
Me: Oh!!!
Kevin: Once he moved in with me, I was like – here is a 23 year-old student who is new to the United States and I just started encouraging him. I was like, you know, I’m poly – you should probably give dating guys your own age a shot. I just kept encouraging him to do nice things and I think I dropped out of the zone of being mean and domineering.
Dale: You weren’t fulfilling the sexual needs of your Malaysian slave boy.
Me: “I didn’t come all the way from Malaysia to get a mommy, now let’s make with the butt smacks!!!”
(laughter)
Kevin: Well that’s the thing. When it comes to kink, I’m very good at improvising. I’m good at going into the scene. We were enjoying sex together, but otherwise I wasn’t a 24/7 hard ass asshole to him and I think he grew bored with me.
Me: Can I ask a question?
Kevin: Yes.
Me: How clean was the apartment?
(laughter)
Kevin: That’s the other thing; it was purely practical. I’m terrible at keeping the apartment clean!
Dale: And he was very good at it.
Kevin: Yeah, and I know a lot of ProDoms who are women, who – there are straight guys lining up out the door to clean their apartment – who pay them! Who pay the women! So I’m like, why should I be paying a Latina woman down the street, when I can find a dude who gets off on it?
Me: Right. To qualify, you live in a [predominately] Latina neighborhood?
(laughter)
Me: I wanted to qualify that Kevin doesn’t think….
Kevin: I actually do have a Latina woman who cleans the apartment now.
(pause)
Kevin: And there’s no sex involved.
(laughter)
Me: At least, not yet.
(laughter)
Copycats
comic/actor julia weidman photos by tommy ka
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
At least, they say that when you’re making fun of them.
This guy isn’t making fun of me, but he’s copying me, for sure.
I was annoyed when I found out that he was baking semi-nude, but then I watched the video.
It’s well produced, and this guy really knows how to ice a cake. Also he is a mutherfucking stud.
Respect.
Enjoy the cake slut video, if you’re into copycats. I guess I’m into copycats, now!
Rats.
The Narrator
Hey fags.
I directed a show at The Magnet Theater.
It’s part of the Director’s Series. Once a month they ask a seasoned comic to direct a show on Thursday nights. December is going to be my month. Shows will be tonight, the 13th and the 27th. Tickets are 7 dollars.
Here’s some pretentious shit I pulled out of my ass for the Magnet blog:
“Rather than doing an improvised musical, we’re doing a musical that is improvised. This means that we’re going for compelling stories with high stakes emotional conflicts to underwrite our funny moments. Audiences should expect a wild ride. Certainly there will be laughter. Possibly there will be tears, and definitely one actor will be in the driver’s seat calling the shots for a completely realized musical narrative.”
What an asshole, right? At least the cast is good. Not only are they hilarious (duh, I taught them) but they’re all damn good actors. Come check it out. I’m proud of the work we did. Jerks.
The Ficus is Dead – Part Three
Me: Yeah. And the definition of a nice Thanksgiving is one where I don’t show up and ruin things. So yeah, I didn’t speak to you after that, because you proved to me that you don’t care about me anymore. I decided right then that I wasn’t going to reach out to you again, until you reached out first. Ha. I guess you called my bluff! Cause a year has gone by and you didn’t even know I was hurting over it. But it doesn’t matter anymore because the ficus is dead. It’s dead and it’s not ever, ever coming back and you don’t get to know about that!
(pause)
Me: You run away from everything.
Him: You. Left. Me.
Me: You left me a long time before that for your drunk ass writer friends.
Him: You wanted me to be a writer!
Me: NOW YOU ARE ONE. Are you happy?
Him: Yes, Michael. I am. I’m very happy, actually. I love my house, and I love my car and I love my boyfriend. And you’re passive aggressive, but I love you too. I just can’t be around you all the time anymore, or maybe even at all. AND I DON’T OWE IT TO YOU TO EXPLAIN WHY.
Me: That’s fine! But I don’t owe it to you to tell you when the ficus dies.
Him: That was a metaphor for us!
Me: It still IS. Our relationship, and I mean our friendship – died. It died in the past year as you turned your back on me and slowly cut me out of our circle of friends. Have you ever seen August Osage County?
Him: No. Why?
Me: Tracy Letts writes a line for one of the characters, about how people are always complaining that America is dying, but the truth of the matter is that America died a long time ago, while Americans were focused on other things. Curling irons. New Cars. Televisions. I’m paraphrasing.
Him: So?
Me: So that’s us. We’re the ficus. It’s dead, and you didn’t even know it was dying. And because of that you don’t get to deserve to know.
Him: Do you see how passive aggressive you are?
Me: You don’t know the half of it. Talk about passive aggressive – you’re imaginary!
Him: What?
Me: I’m making you up. I’m not really saying this to you. This is just what I wish I could say to you. You’re a fantasy Carson.
Him: GOD YOU’RE SO…
Me: Passive aggressive? Maybe you’re right, but at least I’m real, and you’re not, so haha. Anyway, you got all our friends in the breakup so you can console yourself with that.
Him: Hm. Well. In that case…
Me: Yes?
Him: Since I’m a fantasy Carson, I can’t get a hangover. Should we have another beer. Talk this out some more?
Me: I go in circles with this, but I always wind up forgiving you.
Him: Aw you’re sweet. Do you forgive yourself?
Me: I’m starting to. It’s hard. That’s the hardest thing.
Him: Oh, shit, sweetie – I just realized.
Me: What?
Him: Jason’s coming back with cigarettes.
Me: No he isn’t. This is my fantasy and he doesn’t exist.
Him: Oh no! I love him though. Plus I really wanted a cigarette.
Me: You mean like the cigarette you have in your hand right now?
Him: Oh wow. You can do that?
Me: It’s my fantasy.
Him: That’s neat. But why not just make a version of me that doesn’t crave cigarettes?
Me: Because I like your flaws sometimes.
Him: Why?
(long pause)
Me: Because I love you. What are you drinking?
Him: Stella.
Me: I’ll go to the bar and get two Stellas then.
Him: I’ll be here when you get back.
Me: No, you won’t.
Him: What? Why?
Me: Because it’s my fantasy. And because the ficus is dead.
