Don’t miss This Is About Smith at UCB at 6pm TONIGHT! There will be student chefs, manic pixie dream girls, and a capella. Yeah, you heard me. This show has been an absolute dream to work on: I am thoroughly in love with the rest of the team and really looking forward to showing everyone what we’ve got. This is an audition for a run at UCB, so please come out and support us! Bring your friends!
This Is About Smith
Starring Sarah Claspell, Nicole Drespel, Aaron Glaser, Jocelyn Guest, Kate McKinnon, and Veronica Osorio Videtta
Directed by Caitlin Tegart
Written by Leila Cohan
I’ve spent the past few days going back and forth about who to vote for today. I think Bloomberg’s doing a pretty decent job, but as a former resident of Boston, which will likely re-elect its mayor for a FIFTH TERM today, I’m not really down with Bloomberg’s term limits bullshit. I don’t know if I want to cast a vote for undemocratic political manipulation, though because I like Bloomberg, I’m okay with his inevitable win. I just plain don’t like Bill Thompson and I refuse to encourage Reverend Billy. I finally took the time to go through all the candidates and found my pick: Frances Villar, a 26 year old single mother/CUNY student running under the auspices of the Socialism and Liberalism party. She is excellent on health care, homelessness, education, and LGBT rights. I am genuinely psyched to give her my vote, despite this bringing me one step closer to my inevitable future as some crazy old Upper West Side/Park Slope who spends too much money on cheese and writes cranky letters to the editor.
Oh, who am I kidding? That sounds awesome.
This is one of those things I would’ve thought had been linked everywhere, but it does not seem to have been, so here you go: a very good anecdote about customer service, knife-wielding maniacs, and friendship. (via dubodee)
This story reminds me of when, early in my stint at TLA Video on South Street (RIP!), a customer came up and said “you probably already know this, but someone is playing with himself in the back [porn room].” Not knowing how to deal with the situation, I told a long-time employee who went to check out it. He quickly returned, chased by a large man saying “YOU LIKE LOOKING AT PEOPLE, HUH? YOU LIKE TO LOOK AT PEOPLE?” When my co-worker told the offended onanist he would need to leave or we would call the police, the man responded “I’LL KILL ALL Y’ALL MOTHERFUCKERS BEFORE THEY GET HERE!” Despite threatening the lives of everyone in earshot, no one - including the woman I was waiting on at the counter, showed any visible disturbance (ok, my friend Keith - who coincidentally entered the store about a half-minute before - at least looked astounded, like myself). The man trudged off, lost in the passerby on South Street before the police arrived.
I’m still amused that the customer who alerted us to the masturbator assumed we were well aware, and just indifferent.
- Laura Ballance, Our Noise: The Story Of Merge Records
May wind up stealing this bit tonight, as I’m retiring the hipster wig and couldn’t be bothered to find a new look. If it wasn’t for my beard, I could say I was Jim Wilbur.
Speaking of Samberg, I was surprised to find “Iran So Far” on Hulu - guess they resolved that Aphex Twin drama. Totally forgot about the Jake Gyllenhaal cutaway.
I enjoyed quite a bit of Blackout, but this just sounds like the first draft of a Lonely Island short starring Jane Krakowski. “We’ll throw some jokes in the verse later, just sing ‘are you in?’ over and over for now.”
(Ok, “1, 2, 3/Peter, Paul & Mary” is a great hook - Samberg would be proud - but I’m still amazed what people will part with 99 cents for.)
Corey Feldman’s wife Susie is suing for divorce after seven years. Thanks a lot, guys - now it would be in poor taste for me to sing Corey’s valentine song at the wedding. DOO-DOOP-A-DOO-DOO, I LOVE YOU!
Feel free to enjoy the gallery I made of their time together for work. What were you doing at 9:30 this morning?
This may mean nothing more than “Kathryn Bigelow was willing to go to the Hollywood Awards,” but I really hope it says she has a shot of taking the Oscar. Mostly because The Hurt Locker is the best movie I’ve seen this year, but it genuinely would be awesome to see a woman take home this trophy. Sofia Coppola (for Lost In Translation), Jane Campion (for The Piano) and Lina Wertmuller (for Seven Beauties) are the only ones to have even been nominated.
