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• The Del Close Marathon was a blast. In years past, the crowds and beer-soaked hallways detered me, but this year I was fired up. I think being at work too much made me want to simply sit in the theatre and absorb a lot of good shows. I sat still for 4.5 hours at one point — the last time I did that was for Hoop Dreams. Highlights for me: Gemberling playing a stomach solo in No Posers, I Eat Pandas and their standing O, the casual bliss of the Monkeydick reunion and the improvised stand-up comedy of Pass the Mic.
• On Sunday, too exhausted to return to the marathon, Eliza and I strolled around Williamsburg where we stumbled upon [...]

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Stand-up at Oh Hello went pretty well. Nick and John hosted as characters I hadn’t seen before: two gay men who work in catering services for It’s So Raven. Their names? Fabreze Fabreze and Sean Fierce. Those names are so hilarious I am going to type them again: Fabreze Fabreze and Sean Fierce. I could have watched just them for an hour. Now that my night performing there has passed, you may take that as an unbiased recommendation and not a plug. It was a packed house, and I was so nervous before my set that I chewed an entire sheet of paper. It was like I was building a hive.

But it’s a friendly room, and I was happy [...]

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I am appearing in the “Oh Hello” show hosted by the charming Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. They will be hosting as their “Oh Hello” characters, who are very funny.

Details:
Rififi (cinema classics)
332 E11th st (btwn 1st and 2nd ave) NYC
Thursday (which at this moment is TODAY), 8pm

I am about to leave to go to the eye doctors. My right eye has always been significantly worse than my left eye, and I believe this is because as a child I would swim in chlorinated pools and open just my right eye.

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Last night, Mitch Magee, his friend Todd and I were sitting in a Williamsburg bar which gives away free pizza when a stand-up show suddenly sprung up right around us. We had gone to the back, in a tiny alcove, trying to find a place in the bar that did not have music blaring so loud that it prevented any conversation. There were only ten people or so, and it turns out that about six of them were stand-ups waiting to go on. The host didn’t seem to have any jokes, although maybe he was rattled since the room was almost empty and those of us sitting there were silent and bewildered. Instead he would wait for anyone in the [...]

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1) Sinbad is supposed to be a hack comedian, yes? One of the horrible ones, who does predictable and stupid material? Listen to Demitri Martin, you say! Well, despite all the tongue-clucking hipsters’ proclamations, Sinbad’s cable specials used to make me LAUGH — HARD! I would change my schedule to see them. And I wasn’t all that young, either. I was probably like 19 or 20. I’d probably still like them. I don’t care if it’s not hip. He makes me laugh! Sue me.

2) When making a web page, putting your formatting directly in the HTML is lame, right? Use a CSS file instead, you say! But you know what? For all the snobby righteous anger of CSS missionaires, there’s [...]

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Gilbert Hernandez’s new graphic novel Sloth is out. That should be fun. Thanks to Kevin for the heads up.

I do not like the type face Copperplate Gothic Bold or any of it’s variations, but the world has a boner for it. Someday I’ll take pictures of every instance of Copperplate Gothic Bold that I see while walking around — it’s everywhere, still. That’s right, Mitch, I’m talking about fonts!

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I am performing stand-up tonight at Mo Pitkins at 10pm as part of the Mintyfresh Comedy show. Check it out, if you’d like!

http://www.mintyfreshcomedy.com/

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I returned from my week’s vacation to find that the coffee grounds I had left in my coffee machine had sprouted an impressively large lump of mold. Hey, that means coffee can’t be ALL poison!

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Friday, Eliza and I hoofed around The Mission and The Castro. Highlights here included a store called 826 Valencia, which was ostensibly a Pirate Supply store, but it felt more like a headquarters for McSweeney’s. I think McSweeney’s is published out in SF, right? There were very funny lists posted around the place — things like “How Ned Lost His Eye” and “What To Do If You Are Being Mopped.” And everything had an old-timey McSweeny’s-ish typeface, and they sold most of the back issues. I refuse to conduct the very small amount of research necessary to answer this question.

We also saw a sci-fi/horror bookstore that featured a hairless cat. It was creepy and adorable.

By the way, I was [...]

7 Comments | Tags: eliza, san francisco

The hoofing around on Monday injured my aged, tender calves so we did our road trip to Santa Cruz on Tuesday. That way much of the day was spent driving. We went to the boardwalk at Santa Cruz. It was cleaner and friendlier then my trips to Coney Island had led to me expect. It’s a pretty extensive boardwalk! Two big roller coasters, a haunted mansion, huge beach, enormous arcade. At 5pm it became “1907 night” which meant they rolled back the prices on everything: hot dogs, sodas and all rides cost just 65 cents. Eliza declared that if she lived in that town, she’d go every Monday night. I do not believe her, but it was a fun trip.

Then [...]

2 Comments | Tags: eliza, san francisco