Mo' Vember

Note: I had no idea this was a real thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember. 

I mean it here as a further update of my media intake from the latter part of last month.

Music

Got the latest albums from these ladies: 

Florence + The Machine, Zola Jesus, St. Vincent, & the very spooky Chelsea Wolfe

Discovered a glammy, hard rock band from the early 80's — Storm 

New progressive metal from Machine Head, Opeth, and Mastodon

Found this full-length concert video of Van Halen in their prime. Amazing how dynamic a frontman Diamond Dave was, despite constantly forgetting lyrics (or not singing at all). 

Yeti O.S.T. - one of the funniest record covers I've ever seen.

Comedy, Podcasts

Bought the latest albums by Doug Benson, Patton Oswalt, and Eddie Pepitone, all of which are great.

My favorite podcaster Jimmy Pardo made an appearance on Conan's TBS program (where Jimmy does crowd warm-up) in part to promote his third annual 12-hour post-Thanksgiving Pardcastathon to benefit Smile Train. That was I how spent my Friday night/Saturday morning, watching the live stream of the event on my laptop, though I didn't make it through the entire thing — fell asleep @ 230AM so I missed the last third or so.

Some other great podcasts are starting to put out special live episodes like Walking the Room and Who Charted?

Devices

Bought an Iomega 3TB Mac Companion to make backups more efficient, but it wasn't so easy. Spent at least a week reconfiguring the connections between my MacBook, Time Capsule and various LaCie hard drives to get some kind of redundancy going. The problem is that the Apple Time Capsule does not backup any drives that are mounted after it, and while you can store files on the TC, you can't back them up on anything else. Am not fully satisfied with the current set-up, but the new drive is very cool, so it's now my main media server (music, movies). 

Etón Soulra - Bought this thing online from http://www.crutchfield.com cause it seemed like the greatest thing ever, and it was… for 20 minutes until it stopped working. Had them send me a new one and it worked very well… for a month and a half. With some hesitation I had them send me a third, which is fine so far, but I haven't brought it to work yet. I don't have high hopes. I imagine the electronics involving the battery and the solar panel are too sensitive for rugged use. We shall see. There are very few "boom boxes" that fully enclose your iPod/Phone, let alone can run on sunlight. 

Movies

11/16 J. Edgar (disappointing and grey)

11/18 Immortals 3D (pretty, dumb fun)

11/22 The Descendants / The Skin I Live In (both excellent - emotionally moving with clever twists)

11/24 Hugo 3D  (gorgeous but kind of hollow)

11/29 The Muppets / Arthur Xmas 3D (both light-hearted fun)

11/30 My Week With Marilyn (charming, pretty, and little bit sad - like the lady herself)

MST/RT/CT

Rifftrax

Warriors of the Wasteland (aka The New Barbarians), VOD

Buffalo Rider, VOD

The Boy In the Plastic Bubble, VOD from 2010 

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Cinematic Titanic 

War of the Insects (aka Genocide), VOD & DVD for sale here 

Summah Sum-up (6 of 8): Podcasts

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Over the last couple of years they have become my main media of choice. I commute to work via bus or streetcar so I have time to kill every day. Owning first an iPod, then an iPhone, enables me to listen to sound files (mp3's) during my travels. It used to be music, but now it's mainly comedy or film-related podcasts. 

My very first was an episode of Battleship Pretension (#128 w/ guest Frank Conniff, an alum of MST3K) in August of 2009 which I was pointed to by the MST fan site Satellite News. What I found was an informal chat between Frank and the hosts Tyler and David on the subject of so-called "bad movies" and how some people love them, or at least find them fascinating. I liked the hosts enough to check out other episodes, and I still regularly listen to their show.

One of their earliest guests was Matt Belknap who runs the AST (A Special Thing) website and record label. His stories about attending comedy shows in L.A. and posting reviews online inspired me to check out that site and some of the podcasts he produces, namely Jimmy Pardo and Doug Benson (and lately, Greg Proops).

Podcasting is an ideal medium for stand-up comedians as they are inexpensive to record and distribute, allow for free-flowing conversation, and can be released uncensored. Most appear with new episodes on a weekly basis, free of charge, though some have figured out how to monetize their product with paid subscriptions (Pardo's Never Not Funny) or "Bonus" episodes (Benson's Doug Loves Movies & The Benson Interruption - for sale via AST or iTunes).

Marc Maron's WTF has gotten a lot of well-deserved mainstream press recognition as he is funny, insightful, and a great interviewer.

Another early podcast I listened to a bunch was filmmaker Kevin Smith's SModcast.  

In May of this year he launched the SIR Network which is maybe a dozen programs with him and his buddies bullshitting about various topics. I was a regular for awhile but I burnt-out on it and haven't listened in months. 

What I did stick with was the Stitcher app Smith used to stream his product. One can regularly listen to hundreds of shows with this tool (as long as you have a WiFi or 3G connection to the web). Not every podcast out there is a available but a lot of them are. It's a good way to casually check out a show without actually downloading it.

Earwolf is a network that I DO regularly listen to as it features at least half a dozen great shows. Founded by Scott Aukerman (Mr. Show vet, host of Comedy Death-Ray - now Comedy Bang Bang) and Jeff Ullrich. Earlier in 2011 they ran The Earwolf Challenge which was the first (and to date, only) reality-show podcast competition. It was a blast to listen to (3 new episodes a week!) as 10 shows entered, and 1 show walked away with a year-long distribution deal. What was so great about it was that podcasting was looked at as a craft in and of itself, while judges and participants struggled to define what makes an effective show. Earwolf also has an excellent iPhone/Android app that enables you to stream content directly to your device.

Other recent favorites:

NNF Presents: Rock Solid

The Todd Glass Show

The Mental Illness Happy Hour

I would be remiss in not pointing the curious towards Christine E. Taylor's blog Podcasting Changes Everything. She has interviews and features about comedy podcasts and has turned me on to few new ones. It's a fledgling medium and she is one of it's most fervent supporters.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I have only mentioned a handful above. No doubt I will return to this subject in the future…

Summah Sum-up (4 of 8): Comedy

…by which I (mostly) mean live stand-up comedy shows. I wrote recaps for a couple over at AST (which I'm re-posting below), but the first couple I didn't, so I've linked to reviews I found elsewhere.

Brian Posehn @ Cobb's (w/Chris Garcia & Ngaio Bealum) - April

Jay Pharaoh @ Cobb's (w/ Reggie Steele & Kris Tinkle) - July

Maria Bamford @ The Punch Line (w/ Nato Green & Robert Mac) - August

Louis C.K. @ The Punch Line - 8/18

Just got back from the Thursday night show and Louis was awesome. Hour and a half long set of new material. Working stuff out, some pauses and dead ends but he's such a pro it all comes out funny. I'm sure when it's tightened up he'll have a great set to record and show on TV and stuff, but it was cool just to see him be loose and goofy in front of a small crowd.

…

Jimmy Pardo - Never Not Funny / Running Your Trap @ The Purple Onion - 8/19

Just returned from NNF/RYT Live shows at the "legendary" Purple Onion in San Fran. My first time in this room and while it is quaint and charming it's also kind of a dump with numerous interruptions by a noisy bartender and staff, which of course Jimmy remarked upon several times. First show sold out, second a bit more "intimate" (i.e. two-thirds full).

The NNF show was recorded and I imagine will be offered up as a Bonus Episode soon. Guestless (which surprised me because I know Chris Hardwick was in town last night), the guys had some good stories involving Ann-Margret, preparing an apartment for Jimmy's mother, baby bottoms, cocaine (lots of cocaine… and cock), and another great, ultra-cruel, eBay letter from Pat.

RYT was fun with one female contestant being way too weird for Jimmy who offered her many opportunities to step off the stage and a guy named Jeremy who was more co-operative, and ultimately won the game ($31 and a truly bizarre Harry Caray Cubs t-shirt). The panelists were Cole Stratton (his first time – and MVP IMHO), Janet Varney, and "Pat Francisco." Not recorded, so suck it, the rest of you.

Special thanks to fellow podcast aficionado Derek and the great Christine Taylor who were cool enough to talk with me and give me the courage to meet Pat, Matt, and Jimmy after the show(s). They were all as nice and appreciative as you could imagine. Thanks for the great night.

…

Rifftrax Presents - Night of the Shorts II: Electric Riffaloo @ The Castro Theater - 8/20 

with Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett and guest riffers Chris Hardwick, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, Adam Savage, Cole Stratton and Janet Varney 

As per usual for these shows I arrived to a long line of ticket holders that extended around the block. The show started 15 minutes late and by the time everyone was seated, the 1400 person capacity theater looked pretty full to me. After showing the Rifftrax 5 year anniversary highlight reel, Kevin & Bill took the stage … and the crowd went wild - (yay).

First they showed a brief video message from Mike Nelson explaining why he wasn't there  (he didn't come in January either - what's he got against SF?). Apparently while trying to sell RT titles door-to-door he was killed by an irate customer who didn't want to buy their take on "300." Then they outlined what we'd be seeing (they did this last time back in January which I am grateful for since it gave me a chance to jot down notes without missing any of the riffing).

1. County Fair - K&B, lots of singing

2. Act Your Age - w/ Chris Hardwick

3. Paper and I - w/ Bob Odenkirk

4. The Calendar: How to Use It - w/ Cole Stratton and Janet Varney 

5. Flying Stewardess - just K&B

6. At Your Fingertips: Boxes - w/ Adam Savage

7. Tooth Truth with Harv and Marv - w/ Andy Richter

So two repeats from previous Fathom live shows (which I didn't mind) and five "new" ones, adding up to two-hours and overall an even better show than last time. They picked great guests and some truly surreal shorts. I don't know the studio versions of all these so I'm not certain how much of the riffing was new or tweaked by the guest riffers but it all felt fresh to my ears (there was a joke about actor Gerard Depardieu pissing himself that was ripped from today's headlines). They even threw in a few f-bombs and other expletives which delighted the crowd. Seriously, if you have a problem with CT & RT folks swearing at live shows you are a moron.

…

Andy Kindler @ The Punch Line 9/13

Just got back from Andy Kindler. As great as I'd hoped, he prowled the stage like an elderly Dane Cook after a hip replacement (Andy's joke, not mine). The audience seemed to really enjoy him, so don't let him tell you otherwise. Openers Miles K. and Jacob Sirof were really good too. I was the idiot who said that I was there alone because, "I didn't want to have to explain to my friends who Andy Kindler was," which confused Jacob (who was doing some fun crowd-work). After awkwardly trying to explain myself, he finally said, "Your friends are assholes."

SF Sketchfest 2011, Pt.3

My last weekend of shows, though the fest doesn't actually end till this Saturday. This was a really strong bunch, featuring multiple appearances from some of my favorites, the ones I bought tickets to first. As I said before, I will eventually move all my recaps/reviews over here once more photos come out, but for now you can read them over on the A Special Thing Forums.


The links below are to the current SFSF schedule pages, but I imagine over the next year they will update their site, moving these pages to the archive section. I will try to keep up with any changes.

11. Running Your Trap with Jimmy Pardo (game show)
Fri, Jan 28, 8 PM at the Eureka Theatre


12. The Benson Interruption with Doug Benson and guests
Fri, Jan 28, 10:30 PM at the Eureka Theatre


13. Never Not Funny Podcast with Jimmy Pardo , Matt Belknap and Pat Francis  
Sat, Jan 29, 2 PM at the Eureka Theatre

14. Music Night with Chris Hardwick, David Koechner, Garfunkel & Oates, and more! 
Sat, Jan 29, 8 PM at Cobb's Comedy Club


15. Sklarbro Country Podcast with the Sklar Brothers
Sun, Jan 30, 2 PM at Cobb's Comedy Club


16. The Benson Interruption with Doug Benson and guests
Sun, Jan 30, 4:20 PM at the Eureka Theatre


On my way through North Beach to get a bite at Burger Meister before the next show, I caught this eerie site…

St. Peter & Paul Church - Washington Square Park

17. The Meltdown (standup showcase)
Sun, Jan 30, 8 PM at Cobb's Comedy Club


18. The SF Sketchfest Comedy Writing Award: 
James L. Brooks in conversation with Danny DeVito
Featuring a screening of Broadcast News

Tues, Feb 1, 7 PM at the Castro Theatre

Stupid Kid Han Solo

Mr Plinkett's review of SW3: Revenge of the Sith plopped yesterday. Between his series and the Rifftrax commentaries on the trilogy, I've seen the Prequels mocked & deconstructed more times than I've seen them "straight." Truly the series fanboys love-to-hate, and Plinkett takes the time to show why these films fail as films, beyond all the childhood-raping business Lucas is accused of. My theory is that George mostly identified with Palpatine/The Emperor, and made the films to show his rise to power, and took an unconscious glee in killing off the heroic Jedi that have haunted his career since inventing them. I posted more thoughts over on the CHUD message boards here. 

• So I basically spent my New Year's Eve enjoying the above and the latest video podcast from Jimmy Pardo's Never Not Funny, episode 806 with guest Allan Havey.

• Marx Bros. marathon on TCM put me to sleep after 5 minutes, but I DVR'd Duck Soup to watch later. My Motorola is already full so I couldn't record more of them.
• Today, IFC is premiering marathons of their new acquisitions Mr.Show and The Larry Sanders Show. But they'll be repeating them for months, so I'm not too concerned about missing them now. Looking forward to the Comedy Death Ray wraparound/featurettes starting on the 3rd. (ETA: I watched a few Sanders shows and they are still very funny, but not made for Hi-Def. As the show was likely shot on video, I wonder if an upgrade will ever happen.)

• Yesterday I saw Somewhere, which I enjoyed, but being unsure about the ending I'm going to wait to post my thoughts.

• Also just saw that A.V. Club posted it's Best podcasts of 2010, about half of which I already subscribe to. More on my favorites later…