Lanny’s Ex-Wife Cheryl. Rob and I got our old UCBT compadres to be in our show at the LA theatre. Jessica St. Clair played Lanny’s ex-wife Cheryl. Jessica took classes at the same time as Rob and I. I love that she almost breaks here after saying “lasers.” The whole Get Psyched LA show is broken into chapters on YouTube. See St. Clair, Jackie Clarke, Nate Shelkey, Sean Clements, Paul Scheer and Ed Helms. And me. And Rob Lathan.

Buy our book from me in person for TEN BUCKS! Or online for 12 (includes shipping cost) at http://www.getpsyched.biz.

Also, see Lanny’s most recent promo for his book here:

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. ” – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. ” – Lolita.

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” – 100 Years Of Solitude

“Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.” – Watchmen

And I thought The Dark Knight Returns started with “This would be a good death” but it’s “I’ve got the home stretch all to myself when the readings stop making sense.”

Year One is “Gotham City. Maybe It’s all I deserve now. Maybe it’s just my time in hell.”

Fun!

Get Psyched! The Book! Live! Come see Dr. Lanny Latham, his ex-boss Principal Pam Peterson, his three-time-ex-wife Cheryl Latham, his rival Dr. Timothy “Timmy” Robbings, his ex-drug buddy Stan and his current inadvertant co-author Will Hines!

With special opening act Sean Patton, a brilliant stand-up who will have no idea what is going on.

SATURDAY 8pm at THE CREEK in Long Island City! Come see!

Read some sample pages if you want to see what the book is all about.

OR enjoy this sketch that Rob Lathan and I did in 2004 or 2003 or something for our one-time-only Spank “Rob and Will Fix America.” – J.D. Salinger Changes His Voice Mail

Download audio file (salingermono.mp3)

This thing was the hit of the pre-YouTube Internet! Well, not really.
My Salinger voice sounds more than vaguely Indian.

• I want a better profile pic for my twitter. What should I do?
• In the book version of Let The Right One In, the vampire Eli describes once meeting an older vampire and asking why there weren’t more of them? The older vampire answers, and then points at Eli’s chest and coyly suggests something I do not understand. Explain that.
• Is it harder and harder to feel like one knows the current music scene, or is it just something all aging hipsters like myself feel?
• Is it okay if I describe myself as an aging hipster?
• I have eight unspoken for ISBNs and I’m going to use them to publish books by me and my friends. No question here, but if you have suggestions for books I’d like to hear.
• Could it be that the reason the dBs never got any bigger was the lead vocals were never really that powerful, despite the great song writing and arranging?
• You know that very sweet video some teenager made which is just footage of a girl sheepishly walking around a 7-11? And you know how lots of people crapped their pants over it? Am I a dick for thinking that that video is good MOSTLY because it had the good sense to put a good song underneath the footage and that we SHOULD be complimenting the music?
• Anyone know a simpler way to record a podcast than how I’m doing it? I do this: shotgun mikes into a mixer through RCA cables into the “line in” input of a Mac Book Pro into Garage Band. Export as .aiff, edit with Final Cut Pro, export as .aif and use iTunes to change to an mp3. Phew!
• How does Ricky J do anything that he does? Especially the History of Cup and Balls?
• Will we all live to see America be as wonderful as it could be? Or at least to experience hoverboards? How about food pills? Food pills! Food pills!
• Will someone ever dig up a piece of paper that resolves once and for all: who Shakespeare was addressing his sonnets to, what happened to Amelia Earheart, or what Kurt Cobain’s next album would have sounded like?
• What is the scariest short story I could read?
• Will I ever successfully do a Scottish accent on stage? What if I do not wish to put any work or concentration into this task?
• Will I ever live in another city?
• I know I’d prefer invisibility to flying, but how about phasing vs. turning to steel? Emotionally they are similar.
• Will I see Marvel Comics make an original roster of superheros that eclipses the Kirby pantheon? Not that I have anything against the Kirby pantheon, but forty years is a long time to base a company on re-runs.
• Farting, body odor or nose hairs? Which is worse and why?
• That’s it!

His previous entry Nil By Mouth — in which he answers the question of whether he misses eating and drinking since jaw surgery took those things away — is heartbreaking and hopeful. Hooray Roger Ebert!

I really wish I could see what these plays looked like when Shakespeare himself put them on. They seem built for fun, with lots of jokes and murder and backstabbing and grand speeches. It’s hard to imagine people actually understanding them as they were said. But they must have, right? Apparently the Globe Theater was a very large success, and the King’s Men (the players who built it) went on to outlive all of its founding members. How about those guys? Smart, right?

They call the first four history plays — Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 and Henry V — the “Henriad.” Well, not everyone. Some people do. I’m going to. I like that word.

I like that Shakespeare’s characters rarely lie — or at least before they lie, the announce their intention to lie! People are constantly saying exactly what they think. They’d be good improvisers, these fictional characters. Except for the puns, which I never understand.

I’d love to film a couple of these scenes with UCB powerhouses filling up the roles. Someone make that happen.

I also jumped out of a plane this weekend but I honestly feel like describing that would be so obvious! You’re scared, you fall, you’re fine.

See the sample pages to see how cool this thing looks. Thanks to Damian Chadwick for making it look amazing, and to Dyna Moe for giving us a great cover!

This is a self-published venture and very much an online one. Rob and I wrote it with wikiepedia software, are printing it via lulu.com and using paypal.com to process the payments. We copied Porter Mason’s bassistwanted.com model! We are copycats! We may get our crap together and get it listed on Amazon.com at some point but for now it’s all going through getpsyched.biz.

We saw the first proof yesterday, and it looks great! Get Psyched!

Barack Obama was inaugurated as America’s 44th president. In a whirlwind first year in office, Mr. Obama overturned a prohibition on federal funding for stem-cell research, eased some restrictions on dealing with Cuba, lifted a ban on people with HIV traveling to the United States, pushed Congress to pass health-care reform, promised to close the detention camp at Guantanamo, pledged a cut in American’s emissions and promoted the first Hispanic person to the Supreme Court.

I’ll remind you that The Economist is a conservative British magazine, which has a skeptical attitude at best towards America in general and Obama in particular. Still, when tallying what’s important about the year, there’s no doubt of the positive overall change that’s happened. It’s fair game to criticize the president as harshly as you want — it’s part of the job — but step back and see the trends: we’re in a good place, getting better. Full disclosure: disagree with me and I’m probably going to totally ignore you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!