No, MY Life at UCBComedy.com

Hey everybody!

So, in the last post, Matty provided all of you with some pictures documenting his day at UCBComedy.com.

I feel, dear readers, that you deserve my perspective on my day at UCBComedy.com. It's vastly different than Matty's.

So, without further adieu, I'd like to provide you with some pictures of my day at UCBComedy.com.

Every morning when I get in, I get very important emails from very important people. Here is a picture of an email I received with very important and exciting news that can affect everyone's life as we know it.



As Matty mentioned in his previous post, we do get visitors, which is very exciting.

I received a very exciting visitor today! I even took a picture of her as she walked through the door.




And here is a picture of her sitting next to me in the office. She was wearing a T-shirt with a phrase on it from an exciting project she is working on that could possibly affect everyone's life as we know it.



Finally, what's great, for me, about working at UCBComedy.com, is that we work at the actual UCB theatre. Many times, we get to watch the dress rehearsals for some of the upcoming shows, which is super awesome.

Right now, there is a top-secret super-special show rehearsing. It is AH-mazing, and, frankly, because of its genius, it can affect everyone's life as we know it.


I snuck in a took a picture of the rehearsal. Look closely, there's a chance you can see some super-famous people rehearsing their cameos.



And that is MY day at UCBComedy.com.

My Life at UCBcomedy.com

Folks, we've got a present for you today. We know you've been wondering, "what's the glamorous life of a UCB intern like?" Well, we're gonna show you. Right now, yes. Here's the view from Matty's luxurious seat in the back office of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

Oh, man, check it out! Is that a MacBook? Yeah, it is. I get to use it! And that sweet piece of abstract art makes me seem smart. Just a little somethin' somethin' for the ladies. And, to top it all off, I get to use that stapler any time I want. As long as it's business-related. So that's the mustardy-colored front view. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY TOP THIS?!?


Holy crud! A hallway! That's what's goin' on to the left. Interesting note, nobody has ever gone down that hallway, and nobody knows what's down there. My bet's on it being the lair of the Jabberwocky.


How many people are able to say they can spin around and look at the faces of all the UCB interns at once any time they want? How many? Very few. But I can. I can. Also, that Paychex calendar sure comes in handy, mainly because it doubles as just a regular-type calendar.


My view to the right. I don't look there often. No idea who that chick is.


And, not to brag, but on very, very special days, I get a visitor! That's right, it's the UCB's own Harrison Brown! He likes to come in and tell Becky she's doing a really good job. Then I ask how I'm doing, and he just stares at the floor. Then I go home and throw myself one of my Matty Smith-patented pizza n' tears parties, my favorite kind of party. More on that later.


I hope this was as exciting for you as it was for me. You probably work in an office building, with windows and stuff. Talk about banal. If I want to see typical office workings, I can just watch reruns of Working with Fred Savage. Remember Working? They had an episode where they had a Solitaire competition. Haha, Solitaire.

Genius.

One Great Sketch for Monday

So, I asked a friend what to write about today, and she took the cliched route and said I should write about how I hate being a waitress. Sorta difficult for me, because I'm not a waitress, but I think I can do it. How do I hate being a waitress? With every bone in my body. By storing a rage deep down my skin that's ready to just burst at any moment. I keep it to myself, as I walk down the aisle with my feminine gait, nodding politely every time some trucker slaps my behind or says "hey foxy mama, you need a foxy papa tonight?" Then I go home, draw a face with the words "foxy papa" on a piece of paper, staple it to my 260 lb. punching bag, and go to town. I eventually tire and collapse right there on the floor, a sweaty mass of blood, hatred, eggs and toast. That's how I hate being a waitress. Also, I'm a dude, so the female modifier's something of a tease. But WHY do I hate being a waitress? That's not the question. That's a story for another day...

Speaking of Italians, here's a great video written by Ryan Perez!

The Olive Garden


Huggles,
Matty

Becky's Successful Night by Becky

I'd like to talk to you about the greatest achievement of my life right now.

It happened about two weeks ago. I was at my friends Cissy and Julia's place for game night. They set up a big marker board and everyone participating was ready to get our Pictionary on.

A few beers later, it's my turn to draw. I look at my clue and, I swear to you, it was absolutely impossible.

My brain kicked into full gear and I knew I had to get through this. I don't know what happened, but I entered this trancelike state where my hands did all the drawing and the pointing when people were getting closer and closer to the clue. Dry-erase marker even got on my face - right under my nose - yes, just like that episode of Wings.

However, it was like God entered my body and drew my clue for me.

Finally, as I was entering back into reality, I heard someone on my team yell out the right answer. It was magical.

The answer was...

[First, watch this video.



It's called Relationship Pictionary, written by Angela Trimbur.]

SHIA LABEOUF!!!!!!!

Obama Watch: Day One

Obama's been president for several hours now. Let's see how he's doing.

Okay, so I still don't have a job. Mr. Everything's slacking off a bit there. Price of gas? Same price as yesterday, when we were mired deep in the tyrannical Bush regime. Strike two, 'Bama Slamma. And as I walk out on the street, I see... nope, the sidewalks aren't made of gold. Just regular ol' concrete. Come on, Barack of Gibraltar. What the heck are you doing with your time?

So far, I give Obama's presidency a score of one "bark!" out of five. Let's hope he improves over the coming days.

One Great Sketch for Monday

For those of you who don't follow sports, know that pigs were spotted in the skies above Kansas yesterday while Satan sat and licked an ice cream cone. What that vivid imagery refers to is the Arizona Cardinals, who for the first time ever are going to the Super Bowl. It's also the first time ever the Arizona Cardinals will be respected by anybody, and the fourth time ever I won't be ashamed to tell somebody, "Yes, I'm from Arizona." Haha, I kid. I love movie theaters, golf courses, and old people.

From what I hear, football is beloved around the world. Brits love football, the Irish love football, and the Spanish love "futbol" (imagine an accent over the "o")*. I can only assume that they're all referring to the same thing. Otherwise, why would they call it that? Anyhoo, in honor of what the Europeans occasionally like to refer to as "American soccer," here's a great sketch written by Tim Saccardo:

Dumping Gatorade on Coach



*I only realized after typing this that I used the US and three western European countries to represent "the world." What can I say? I'm a Western Hemisphere sort of guy, and I don't like to throw my throwing stones too far from the front porch, if you get what I mean.

The Best Moments in Rock and Roll History

Folks, rock music is pretty much the best thing ever. Case in point: this video from Scott Brown and Anthony King. I, for one, can organize my whole life by musical phase-- I graduated college during my "Electric Light Orchestra resurgence" phase, for instance, and the summer I spent working for a construction company was my "Kinks and Boz Scaggs*" phase. The history of rock and roll is a history of awesomeness, and there are some immortal moments that stand out above the rest.

Here're my three personal favorite moments in recorded rock and roll history-- for accessibility's sake, they're moments you can go out right now, buy a CD of, and listen to in your room while ignoring your mom's phone calls and drawing pictures of dinosaurs doing human activities. At least, that's what I'd do. And no, hippie hipsters, the Fleet Foxes** are not gonna show up on this list, even if they were by far the best part of SNL on Saturday night. Fleet Foxes? More like Sleet Sloxes. List, begin!

3. "Wham, Bam, Thank You, Ma'am" (David Bowie, "Suffragette City")
No. Thank you, David Bowie. Towards the end of "Suffragette City," the music dips and it seems like Bowie's rollicking anthem may be over. Just then, Bowie screams the aforementioned phrase in what may be the coolest voice ever, and it all starts up again, more frenzied and energetic than ever. More importantly, before the line, Bowie has already used the word "suffragette" 16 times-- likely more than any other rock song ever has (or will). But the line is his way of saying "I want to say 'suffragette' some more now,"*** as he goes on to roll up the total to 25, culminating in the closing shout, "Suffragette!" We get it, D-Bow, you really like women's voting rights.

2. Led Zeppelin is Better Than Everything (Led Zeppelin, "Moby Dick")
The ol' Zep is a band that made an entire career out of being better than everyone else (except, arguably, E.L.O.). The tactic worked quite well, although no other band has successfully duplicated the Great Drummer+Great Guitarists+Great Lead Singer+Great Songs=Great Band formula. Instead, today's bands follow more the Thick-Rimmed Glasses+Interesting Moustaches+Hats-Musical Competence strategy, with expectedly non-facemelting results. But rarely is Led Zeppelin's superiority to everyone else more apparent than late in "Moby Dick" when, after what is considered one of the best drum solos ever, the guitars return with a heavy riff that's far better than what most bands have as the centerpiece to their songs, much less as afterthoughts to drum solos. It's music talk for "F you guys, we don't even need lyrics or melody to be the Bobby Orr of rock and roll."*** To explain, I (along with Led Zeppelin) consider Bobby Orr to be the greatest hockey player of all time.

1. "Behind them...?" (Poison, "Talk Dirty To Me")
Long before Bret Michaels broke out with the Emmy-winning**** and critically acclaimed**** VH1 series "Rock of Love," he was in a band called Poison, a pile of hair and sleaze that produced four good songs in the 80s. "Talk Dirty to Me" is one of those four songs, even though the fact that one of their guitarists is named "C.C." is a bit over-emphasized (especially in the music video). But the best part is right after the solo towards the end when the chorus kicks in with everyone singing, and the line "behind the bushes" is replaced by "behind them (slightly overlong pause)... bushes!" with "bushes" sounding rushed and off-beat. Some would argue it's for effect, but I like to think it's because the band, all at once, temporarily forgot the words in their drugs-n-hairspray-induced haze and blurted it out at the last minute, then left it on the track just because they didn't want to have to do another take. Oh, what raucous fun they must have had in the studio.

Maybe it's anticlimactic, but that's what rock and roll is all about, people: not the music or the glamour, but the mythologies you create in your own head. The magic of your own imagination, and the feeling you get when you're driving down the PCH at 100 mph with a police brigade hot on your heels. Also, when Dio throws up the horns like his Italian grandmother taught him. The music and the glamour are pretty important, too. Actually, strike all that other stuff I said-- the music and the glamour are what rock and roll is about. Now, to end this post the only way I know how: Suffragette!



*Admittedly, the "Boz Scaggs" portion of this phase consisted entirely of one song, "Lido."
**Foxes has gotta be one of the most awkward pluralizations ever, and it only gets more awkward each time you say it. Foxes. Foxes. Look at those foxes. Should be foxen, or foxi.
***Read with a British accent in mind for full effect.
****Facts not checked for accuracy. Also, check it out: four asterisks, people! This thing's nearly unreadable.

Have a Short Roommate?

If you're tall, I bet you do.

We all like to play pranks on our short roommates, so here's a list that is bound to get their little panties in a knot.

1.) Place their Benefiber on the top shelf of the pantry.

2.) Call them "short".

3.) Place the toilet paper dispenser on the ceiling.

4.) Call them "short" a second time.

5.) Prank call them and ask if their refrigerator is running. (I know you can play that prank on anyone, but for some reason it just happens to be funnier when played on a short roommate.)

6.) Have sex on the foot of their bed while their sleeping.

So, if you haven't figured out already, this entire post has been one of sarcasm. That's right. These are all pranks that have been pulled on ME.

And I'm bitter. Really, really bitter.

So, now you're going to have to reread this entire post in a morose and petulant manner.

And, after you do, Joel and Erin put up another episode of Roommating on UCBComedy if you want to check it out.

2,000! We Did It!

Today, the UCBComedy Blog broke 2,000 unique visitors. That's 2,000 different people who've visited the site, or 20 people who've deleted their cookies and returned to the site 100 times, or something. I choose to believe the former, because I'm one of those people who picks and chooses their beliefs. 2000's an important number. It was the year everyone expected computers to go crazy and kill us all, when you attach it to the end of a name it always makes it cooler (i.e. Roomba 2000, Al Gore 2000), and when you google it you get that sweet picture of the dude looking through a magnifying glass at right.

We've had a lot of great times at the UCBComedy.com blog, and I just wanted to recount my favorite memories of the past few months. Here they are, in a specific order:
- Our first post.
- The time when, in an effort to make money for the site, Becky and I sold competing friendship bracelet-styled products.
- The season we spent at that sweet beach resort.
- The time Matt Besser and I were trapped in an elevator with Mrs. Belding as she delivered her baby.
- The time Justin (who we nicknamed "Screech") ended up with a higher GPA than Becky but let her be the valedictorian, but then Becky found out and let Screech take his righful place as valedictorian at the Bayside graduation ceremony.

Good times, and I was glad to be there for all of those as they actually happened. Who knows what treasures the next 2,000 unique visitors will behold?

One Great Sketch for Monday

Hey everybody! I missed you all over the holidays. Stop by sometime to say hi and we can ketchup. "Ketchup" is tomatoese for "get filled in on everything you've missed while you've been apart." Well, it's Monday, and I don't think it's just Jim Davis' Heathcliff rip-off that can't stand that day. To celebrate, here's a little video about Monday from Chris Kula, a writer from the UCB who likes to write comedy that's funny rather than comedy that isn't. Enjoy!

I Hate Mondays


Also, check out below for my (arguably ill-formed) favorite movies of the year!

The (Objective) Top 6 (7?) Films of the Year

Hey, I know movies. I've seen over 30 of them. So you gotta believe me when I tell you that my list is, without a doubt, the most airtight and objective top movie list you'll find on any modern medium. Before I continue, I have to admit that I haven't seen the divisive Benjamin Button yet. But I assure you, it would probably not make better than 12th place, because I would like it and think it touching but also find it overlong. I'd then go into how it can't compare to F. Scott Fitzgerald's original work and bust out all these things from writing hundreds of pages on the guy for my American Studies major in college, because I can be like an old man at times. It would be about the third time in three years I'd have found that major useful. On to the top six films of the year!


6. Kung Fu Panda / Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
I realize I may have compromised the integrity of my list at the start with an ambiguous number of films ranked, but these two sort of go together. These films, both made by the non-lamp-related 3D animation studio, are just simple, great fun from beginning to end. Likable characters and voicework, little lag or heavy-handed lessons, and a lot of great laughs and images make for great entertainment for everyone. Honestly, if you're looking for a fun, enormously-satisfying hour and a half, look no further. Wall-E is not gonna be on this list, because while the first half was beautiful, overall the movie made me pretty sad. KFP and M:E2A made me happy. I'm sold.

5. Role Models
Ben Affleck used to be my favorite man alive, but I think Paul Rudd takes the honor with this great comedy that had all the pseudo-raunchy fun of similar comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Pineapple Express, but never took it to a dark place and never took a less than earnest turn like I feel those other films did. Everyone puts in a good performance, children rock, even the required "emotional zing" segment wasn't too drawn-out, and the climax involved a great deal of LARPing. I honestly don't see why Role Models didn't get more attention than it did.

4. The Dark Knight
Enough's been said about this film. It's something of a phenomenon.

3. Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood is so grizzly and jowly in this movie, it seems like at any moment his leathery face will collapse into itself in a supernova of angry old man cliches. And for some reason, he makes that awesome. I've never been in a theater where passive racism was laughed at so hard, and I'm not sure what that means, but by the end of the film Eastwood's bigoted character learns a lesson or two and we believe it. Also, it stands as a good cautionary tale for anyone thinking of moving to Michigan. The football team stinks, the car industry's a dead horse, and the old men are frickin' insane. Buyer beware.

2. Slumdog Millionaire
I love happy romance movies (as my little sister has told me on several occasions: "You're a girl"), and Slumdog is nothing but a simple, beautiful romance. It's one of the more linearly plotted films of the year, but that simplicity works, and is mixed with beautiful visuals, great performances by likable and believable leads, and energetic direction by Danny Boyle. For my heart, there's only one thing that can beat out a great love story, and that thing is...

1. JCVD
...Jean-Claude Van Damme, the Muscles from Brussels. A lot of people have looked at me funny when I told them this is easily my favorite film of the year, and others think I'm joking at first. But JCVD plays himself as the outdated action star so well in such a unique, honest film that I can't help but be in love with the man (watch out, Ben Affleck and Paul Rudd!). At one moment, JCVD plays like an action film, at others, an art film, and at others still, a comedic parody of both. I was overjoyed with every fascinating choice the film made, from the pretentious chapter title cards, to the semi-disorienting replays of events, to the gritty camerawork. It's silly, sad, funny, exciting, and interesting all at once. Seriously, I think everybody needs to see this movie. And if your response is, "whatevsies, it's the dude from Bloodsport," well, you really are missing out.


So those are my favorite movies of the year and, coincidentally, the best movies of the year. A lot of awesome stuff came out, but those are the six (seven?) movies that made me leave the theater smiling and eager to watch again. And really, that's all the criteria for a great movie I need.

Something I Noticed This Week...

I was using my debit card to pay for a pack of gum at 7-11 and learned that the company refers to their employees as "Sales Associates". So, then I realized that I will never be qualified to ever work at 7-11. Don't you go to college to be a sales associate or some type of training seminar where you get a cool certificate?

If your job title is "7-11 Sales Associate" then you have to have a business card. You're probably listed in Linkdin and I bet you go to your high school reunion and treat everyone like a total douchebag because your insecurity catapulted your success. Whatever, paste-eater, go be successful in your cubicle which I'm sure you have because you're a sales associate. Go read your motivational calendar and buy a digital camera for your weekend at Sandals.

I resent you, 7-11 Sales Associate, wherever you are. Your financial success makes me want to throw up on you at 3 in the morning.

Even if I didn't resent you, I would still throw up on you at 3 in the morning. I've been doing it weekly anyway.

It's Just TOO Real!!

I don't like it when people dislike certain kinds of comedy because "it hits too close to home."

I told an old boss of mine that my favorite show was The Office. He cringed and said, "Oh! I can't watch it. It's just too real. It hits too close to home."

"But... it's a TV show," I responded.

He cringed, walked away, and left two weeks later. I remember him saying at his goodbye party that Two and a Half Men really cracks him up.

So, that, of course, made me forgive him for disliking The Office.

I also had a French professor who said she couldn't get through Meet the Parents. How can you not get through that? She said that movie hit so close to home that she called off her engagement. "It was just too awkward", she said. However, for some reason, during French Cinema Appreciation Day, she showed us her favorite film where people pee on each other. (No, it's not that movie where that kid chases a red balloon. That's a balloon, not pee.)

I suppose everyone has a piece of comedy that hits too close to home. I guess I have one, too, even though I still like it.

Here's the video that's just a little too "real" to my life right now.