The Comedy Life of Brian

A Deep Comedic Moment

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:56:00 +0000

I watched Obama's inauguration today in a packed conference room at work. It was amazing. Something really interesting happened outside all of us fining hope in our future. Every time George W Bush appeared on screen, the entire room burst out laughing. Under the covers I think that is pretty amazing. One of three things could be causing this break in tension:

1) We've been so conditioned to laugh at Bush that we will do so under any circumstances.
2) A room of people with varied backgrounds recognized this as a hightened moment of Bush being forced to accept his monumental failures in front of millions.
3) He really did have a goofy look on his face

Or maybe all of the above. An interesting study in laughter in any case.

A Gap In Time

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:45:00 +0000

You might have noticed that there is a pretty huge gap in the timeline on this blog. For the curious, there was a period of time where I was using a specific content management system that shall remain nameless. For security reasons I had to take it down and lost months worth of live content as a result. I have a backup and intend to fill in the blanks here, but it will be a horrible manual process. So while hopefully you will see old content trickle in, it is going to take a long long time. And in the meantime I still need to redesign my super ugly bare bones site anyway. But I've got blogging to do - and for now I'm going to do it for an audience of one. Me!

A Message From The Video Game Future

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Today the Wall Street Journal ran an article about how the PS3 is unlikely to make a comeback in this console generation. I'd buy that. My prediction is that during the next generation we see the same thing about Nintendo's next console (WiiII?). Mark my words. I'm a huge Nintendo fan, but I think the big N is making some mistakes now that are going to hurt them years and years into the future.

Working and Breaking

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 21:33:00 +0000

This is a test post to help me do some testing as I try to migrate my blog over to its new home, and also use some new publishing tools.

Watch as I break shit!

Tearing Everyone Down

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:28:00 +0000

I think I've decided on a whim today that I'm going to tear my whole website down and install Drupal in its place. I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather focus on filling my site with tons of content rather than spending time (or not spending time in this case) on making it look good. Plus, I think that getting some skill with Drupal will help me with a few other projects I'm working on right now.

So bottom line, you might see my whole site go down this weekend and come back up in a very incomplete, experimental state. To the future!

Elections Are Very Serious

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:22:00 +0000

It is tough to take all of those online campaign songs seriously but I've finally found two videos that accurately sum up today's political climate.

I think one of these is intentionally funny, and one is not. Readers - can you guess which one is which?

The Raw Harold

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:57:00 +0000

Wading through my Google alerts this morning I came across some mega-praise for 'The Raw Harold' a UCB NY class show featuring friend, associate, and regular Smash Brothers opponent Greg DeSantis. Wish I could have made it out to one of these shows, but alas - such activity is not in the cards for me right now.

Note to self...

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:29:00 +0000

So Much For Your TV

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:23:00 +0000

I don't buy this whole trend yet, but I'm sure having fun tracking it. Apparently people out there think that you don't need to watch TV on TV anymore. Weren't some writers pissed off about that or something? Anyway...

So on the twitters I hear that South Park Studios is now streaming every episode of South Park online. Even though this season is off to a bummer of a start, that is still great news.

That news got me to finally check out Hulu - the new 'YouTube Killer' chock full of premium network generated content. What does that mean? Well, that means I can watch every episode of Arrested Development, The Dana Carvey Show, Clips from every season of SNL, Cult Movies, even reality shows that make me want to die.

And I can do pointless things like embedding an amazingly dated clip from the Dana Carvey show in a blog post.

Is it too good to be true? Yes. Just like that whole RedLasso thing. Will this be relevant in a year? I'm not convinced. But in the short term, will it help me dig up helpful source material for my upcoming late night talk show themed show at IB? Hell yes.

So Much For Summer Sun

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:10:00 +0000

People don't want me to leave the house this summer. Finally confirmation that Rock Band hits Wii on June 22nd. But if I need to leave the house, at least I won't have to go without Guitar Hero.

Laser Tag

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:54:00 +0000

Here is a video from The Black Keys upcoming Dangermouse produced 'Attack and Release'. It really caught me off guard in the beginning.

Strange Times

Honestly I think after a pretty shocking first minute or so they wussed out and backed off of the laser tag hostage situation thing a bit, but the lines where the kids are panicking about people with real lasers are still pretty priceless.

Who Needs CDs?

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:06:00 +0000

I'm tracking a fantastic trend in music lately where more and more artists aren't releasing their albums on CD but are instead finding alternate methods to distribute physical media to their fans. This year I've bought Radiohead's custom discbox and bought a vinyl only album from 'Attack in Black' that came packaged with a card providing access to the digital download of the album. Elvis Costello also announced this week that his latest album won't be released on CD and will carry a similar Vinyl / Digital format.

Furthering the trend, Vinnie Fiorello (primary songwriter of Ska/Punk legends Less Than Jake, and easily one of the primary influences of my creative life) has recently announced 'Paper and Plastick Records'. Here is the background in his words:

"Agree or disagree with me but as the digital age of music comes ripping in I find myself missing the art. I miss holding the record, I miss reading every single lyric printed and every name on the thanks list.

Paper and plastick started for the bands that still love visual art to go with the music they put out and for the artists that use their creative energy to produce a backdrop of art for record covers, tshirts, screen printed posters and every other facet of a band visually besides the music."

The plan is that they will also be doing the vinyl / digital thing, but including some form of artwork with the album. In fact, sometimes the art might be a completely standalone piece like a plastic toy. Being a big DIY guy and a collector nerd this sounds right up my alley.

Sounds like I'm going to be investing in a turntable again.

Audio Moblog

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:23:00 +0000

IB Opening Party!

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:46:00 +0000

Yeah!

Options

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:57:00 +0000

Something unexpected came up recently, and it is time that I wrote about it. I'm intentionally leaving out some specifics below, as I don't want to step on anyone's toes.

So a few weeks ago I was in Las Vegas on my honeymoon. The trip was great, but I wasn't able to unplug from the real world as much as I should have. In the middle of that, I got word of people quite adamantly trying to track me and my friend Greg down. Eventually they got a hold of Greg's sister. They got to us through a domain registrar so my guess was that they wanted to buy the rights to a domain we held. I was in no rush to deal with that, especially on my honeymoon.

Turns out that wasn't exactly the case. The reason that they got to us through Greg's sister based on info from a domain registration was because they were having trouble tracking us down. No offense if any of the trackers are reading, but I find that to be a little baffling - as far as I am concerned there is quite a bit of information on me floating around the web. My personal web site comes up #3 if you Google my name for example. Anyway...

The reason they were really after us was a bit of a surprise. They represented a production company and they were interested in optioning the rights to an old project of ours. Turns out that they had stumbled upon the Home Depot challenge in college when it was a bit of a buzz on the web, and the idea stuck with them. One of them apparently even went as far as printing out my journal from the bet and kept it on their bookshelf to revisit at a later date. I found that both amazing and super flattering.

So after putting our heads together, Greg and I made a day trip to meet with them. They ended up being reasonable guys who we could relate to for a variety of reasons. Also in the good news category, their specific idea for the project was interesting and most importantly they seemed to genuinely be excited about the material.

So a bunch of boring business bullshit followed, and eventually Greg and I agreed to option the rights to the concept. Regardless of what comes out of this, that is a major milestone for both of us considering that we both have goals to continue to grow our creative careers. It is entirely possible that nothing more will come out of the project. At the same time, it isn't an impossibility that this could develop into something tangible - and that would be good times. Regardless of any 'final' outcome we support the people who are taking a shot at moving this project forward and wish them the best of luck.

If there are any future updates fit to print, I'm on it. At some point, I'm sure I will have an opportunity to flesh out some more details.

Look At My Face!

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:40:00 +0000

Hey, I've got a new headshot. Thanks goes out to Neil Reynolds for Neil Reynolds-ing the shit out of it.

In other news, Super Smash Brothers Brawl was released this week, and I have it in my possession. As a result, all plans for productivity are now a distant memory. See you guys in 13 months or so.

Nuclear Cowboys In An Age Of Drift

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:44:00 +0000

I'm not really a protest song guy, but with the prospect of the Democratic race continuing into the summer, this song kind of sums up how I feel about the election process at this point in time.

Outside of politics, I also think this video represents something interesting. Thanks to YouTube and tiny cell phone cameras a band like Against Me can now write a topical protest song (the title apparently is taken from a recent Newsweek article), play it at a tiny in-store gig, and get the message out to a wider audience amazingly fast.

Plugs For This Week

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:35:00 +0000

Thursday: IB Opening!

Friday: Harold Night with Rondo!

The Thirsty Mayor

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:32:00 +0000

An episode of 'This American Life' has a great segment about headline pitch meetings for The Onion. It starts about 5 minutes in.

Save The Wild Things

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:49:00 +0000

I got taken off track a little bit this morning as I stumbled across news about Spike Jonze's upcoming live action adaptation of 'Where the Wild Things Are'. Word on the street is that Warner Brothers is considering taking Spike off the project, discarding the Dave Eggers script, and reshooting the entire film.

Read up for the scoop:
* FirstShowing.net
* Chud.com
* Aintitcoolnews.com (On a release date change)

At this point, I'd like to see nothing more than having the Spike Jones / Dave Eggers version of this film released (in some form). It really sounds like the current take on this film is everything I'd want a 'Wild Things' adaptation to be. And it also sounds like a reworked version could be a massive pile of shit.

Some early test footage leaked, and while very strange it confirms all of my suspicions about the project - this is a movie that I really, really want to see find a release.

Plus, maybe it will make up for how much I disliked 'Adaptation'.

Inspiration at the Right Time

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:16:00 +0000

The bad news - I'm going to be spending the bulk of this weekend working on a couple of creative projects that I am embarrassingly behind on. The good news - the stars have aligned and I'm extra inspired today.

I'm not sure exactly what caused this spark. It is probably a bunch of things. Last night was my first night as an audience member and a performer at the new ImprovBoston. There were absolutely a few challenges and struggles (soundproofing anyone?) and overall I think that everyone is still trying to figure the new space out. But that same streak of chaos gives the exciting feeling that for a few weeks -anything- could happen at ImprovBoston. And the future of Harold night and the Harold program is an extremely exciting prospect.

A much simpler form of inspiration is this interview with Michael Showalter I read this morning.

Ok. Back to work.

Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:02:00 +0000

Having a tough day? Listen to this MP3 of the isolated vocal track for Van Halen's 'Runnin' With The Devil'. That should cheer you up.

Boston News Net

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:27:00 +0000

Just stumbled upon the site for Boston News Net - a new weekly news show at the new ImprovBoston. The site and the show is still in the preview stages, but I've got to say I'm impressed with what they are working on. The technical elements are impressive, but what I'm most excited about is that it looks like they plan on streaming each weeks show online. I'm jealous that they are the first people out of IB to do that. I will be following the progress of this show for sure.

There is so much stuff developing at IB right now its hard to even keep up. Adventure!

Someone Needs to Tell Me This...

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:19:00 +0000

I would have without question flown out to LA to see The State reunite. All someone had to do was tell me before tickets sold out...

Seriously, how did I miss this?

'New Tom Green Show' Highlights

noreply@blogger.com (ricomedy) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:32:00 +0000

I've said it before and I will say it again - I still like Tom Green. I thought this highlight reel from his short-lived late night talk show was pretty interesting.