Comedian and writer Brock Wilbur is obsessed with the TV show Dexter. Wrap your home in plastic and thrill to such light fun discussion topics as serial killers, being a jerk on twitter, magic murder amulets, creative swearing, and Florida! Fun! Also, did you know there’s a Dexter rap? I’m sorry, but there is.
Thanks as always to Molly Lewis for our theme song!
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For the last few years, I’ve been writing down all the things I did that year to remind myself to stop beating myself up for not working hard enough.
I did work hard and do a lot of things this year and I’m going to reward myself with a much shorter, lazier post. Here are 14 things I’m proud of, happy with, and otherwise feel like giving myself a gold star for. For example, I think I deserve a gold star for not giving two shits about ending a sentence on a preposition. These are also not in any particular order. One of the other things I did this year was EMBRACE CHAOS.
Here we go:
1) I moved to Los Angeles. I love the city, I love the weather, it’s good for my comedy career, and it’s fun to live in a place where I can go to the neighborhood grocery store for ice cream and whiskey and see three different character actors who have been murdered by Jack Bauer on 24. Most importantly, I have yet to burst into flames.
2) I did a lot of stand-up. I’ve done a lot of different types of comedy performance–improv, sketch, children’s theater, working at Kinko’s–but I’m really enjoying saying comedy things into a microphone. This year, I performed at SF SketchFest, the Jonathan Coulton Cruise, headlined at Comedy Corner Underground in Minneapolis, a bunch of different geek conventions, variety shows with my wonderful friends The Doubleclicks, and performing on shows around town in LA. A highlight for me was getting booked on Ron Lynch’s awesome show TOMORROW. I was the first comic up and the last comic of the night was Louis CK. I’ve also been posting a bunch of my stuff to YouTube. Here’s a bit about objectification and soup recorded live at CONvergence.
3) Writing and hosting for WTFark. I did several stints guest hosting this satirical comedy news show. My favorite, by far, is this story about a monkey man which caused Huffington Post to quote me about monkey cults in New Zealand.
4) I shot an episode of TableTop with Wil Wheaton. If you’re not familiar with TableTop, well, hello and welcome to your first day on the internet! I hope you like cats! Seriously, TableTop is an awesome show, Wil’s an awesome host, and it was super fun to shoot. I played the game Concept and my episode should be out in early 2015. Until then, here’s a picture of me from the set!
5) I started a Patreon. The kind and generous support of my patrons has given me the freedom and impetus to keep creating comedy stories and essays on my blog, producing my podcast Obsessed, and unlocking fun, weird goals like doing stand-up dressed as a squirrel.
6) I became a Social Justice Warrior. Contrary to my assumptions, there was not a long series of arduous trials. All I had to do was speak up about issues of common human decency and equality! I’m particularly proud of this essay about what a stupid, inefficient insult SJW is.
7) I wrote another episode of Getting On with James Urbaniak. James’ podcast is great. In every episode he plays a different character who happens to be named James Urbaniak. I’ve written two other episodes, but this one was a special spooky episode released on Halloween. It features James playing a man who is both a motivational speaker and a werewolf.
8) I recorded an episode of The Dork Forest with Jackie Kashian. I’ve done a lot of guest bits on great podcasts this year–including Star Wars Minute, Feliz Navipod, Fire Talk With Me, Kneel Before Aud–but Jackie’s was extra special because she gave me a t-shirt. I’m thrilled to have got to know Jackie a little better. She’s an amazing comedian and a great podcast host and she let me defend the Star Wars prequels and didn’t even kick me out of her house.
9) I helped make Thanksgiving Versus Christmas happen. Thanksgiving Versus Christmas was my friend Molly Lewis’ awesome holiday special. Molly wrote all the songs, the awesome Josh Cagan wrote the book, and we performed it as a live show. I directed, played the narrator, and did a little bit of work on the script. Everything came together beautifully (Molly has an excellent wrap-up here) and it was one of those wonderful magic times where the show was even more than the sum of its parts. And the parts were all damn good to begin with. The show is available as an album and you can pre-order the hell out of it right now.
10) I continued being Obsessed. I continue to enjoy doing my comedy podcast Obsessed and to my delight, the listenership continues to increase! One of my favorite episodes this year was both insightful and horrifically funny thanks to my guests Tim Wick and Rebecca Watson. The episode was about CATS. Other favorite episodes included obsessions with Maps, Grease 2, Tiny Things, and Tenacious D. You can find them all on iTunes.
11) I continued to tweet a lot. I don’t know if I’m proud of that, but it’s definitely a thing that happened. Here’s one of my favorite tweets this year.
As a kid, I thought being a cyborg would be cool. I just saw a guy wearing Google Glass smoking an ecigarette. Illusion shattered.
— Joseph Scrimshaw (@JosephScrimshaw) May 12, 2014
12) Writing, writing, always writing. I wrote a lot of different things this year. In addition to some of the stuff mentioned above, I’m proud to be a regular contributor to Alice Lee’s awesome essay site Yearbook Office where I write about things like social justice and U2. I also wrote 30,000 words of a novel that I’ll eventually finish and I wrote three drafts of a sit com spec script that I’m currently shopping around. I also wrote this thing about Aquaman and got a thumbs up on twitter from the current writing team on the actual Aquaman comic book. Several of my (already written, thank god) plays were produced this year including Adventures in Mating, An Inconvenient Squirrel, and Stitch, Bitch N Die with more productions to come next year.
13) I started a show in LA called HOT COMEDY DREAM TIME. The concept of the show is that I get guest comedians and actors and they perform something they’ve always wanted to perform. In the show’s three month trial run, we created new sketches and bits with Hal Lublin, John Ross Bowie, Wil Wheaton, Dana Snyder, Mike Phirman, Greg Benson, Kim Evey, and Audrey Kearns. The show will be back in 2015! Details soon right here on the website.
14) I AM STILL ALIVE. Well, that took a sudden and dark turn. 2014 has, in many ways, been a rough year. There’s been a lot of brutal and pointless violence in the world. A lot of sad deaths in the world of comedy. Two friends from the comedy scene in Minnesota passed away suddenly in the last months of the year. Sometimes it feels like it would be easy to succumb to despair given how difficult and unfair life can be. But in doing something like writing this year in review, I look back on all the amazing, kind, funny, brave, gracious people I know–people I work with creatively, people I know in real life, people I only know on social media, people I see in audiences at shows who have done this insane incredible thing called leaving their house–and I feel very refreshed and inspired.
Thanks to everyone who has helped justify my optimism this year.
15) I ADDED ANOTHER ONE BECAUSE CHAOS REIGNS SUPREME. I also watched a lot of Netflix with my wonderful wife, Sara. We like Arrow a lot. Thanks, universe.
If you enjoy my work, you can check out all the comedy words and things I’m making via Patreon.
Filed under Comedy Real Life, Uncategorized
Joseph and his martinis decided to do some fast dirty interviews onboard Jonathan Coulton’sfourth annual music-comedy-nerd cruise. A plethora of cruise-goers including Grant Imahara, John Scalzi, The Doubleclicks, and more answer questions about the cruise, community, alcohol, Angry Clown Island, Beyonce, Lord of the Flies, and more. PLUS: A very special version of the Obsessed theme song by Molly Lewis.
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I once again sailed on JoCoCruiseCrazy and I once again had a great time performing as well as doing other human things that I would normally do on land but instead doing them on a boat.
If, like my mother, your first reaction is “What’s a JoCo and why are people cruising on it?” here are the basics: Jonathan Coulton is a talented, kind, funny human who sings songs. For the last four years, he’s gathered other talented, kind, funny humans to sing songs and tell jokes on a cruise ship. You should go next year.
This year, the cruise was on a ship that I believe was designed by aliens. More on that later.
Here’s some cool stuff about the Jonathan Coulton part of the cruise:
The attendees call themselves Sea Monkeys. After four years, the Sea Monkeys have formed a community that exists on the sea, the land, the internet, and sometimes even the air if you go parasailing during the cruise.
For example, a nice Sea Monkey named Laura dressed her stuffed monkey up as Batman and then gave it a taco just for me. Things like this constitute fairly normal interactions on the cruise.
The Sea Monkeys are also a great audience. I had over a million metric tons of fun performing in the ship’s Goth Club in the middle of a Monday afternoon. The club had a strange, sexy Beefeater theme so this statue was my co-star.
Paul F. Tompkins kindly performed the controversial piece Cats Versus Dinosaurs with me and Molly Lewis was my co-host for my nerd-friendly sport Competitive Hugging. The Sea Monkey volunteers came, they saw, they hugged the shit out of each other.
I also played a role in the boat edition of Thrilling Adventure Hour. Peter Sagal and I portrayed angry people from the Midwest. It was easy to get into character.
And I served as communications officer for “Drunk Celebrity Artemis” in which Grant Imahara flew our spaceship backwards through asteroids. This was not an actual command given by our Captain, Angela Webber of The Doubleclicks, but it was very entertaining.
All that said, the actual cruise part of the cruise seemed even stranger to me than normal.
Cruises are meant to evoke elegance and luxury, but with the glut of cruise problems in the last year there’s also the mental image of being lost at sea, defecating in a bag, while rats infested with the norovirus stare at you in judgment until you wash up on the island from Lord of the Flies.
Perhaps because of these thoughts I was more aware of the cruise ship as a floating contradiction. I spent a few extra minutes on my balcony staring at the endless sea and the vast sky–realties of the physical world that remind you of your tiny insignificant nature and the absurdity of our civilization. All of that just a few feet away from an angry lady from Iowa screaming BINGO and spilling a little bit of her strawberry-mocha margarita out of the commemorative plastic cup that is ringed with chunks of salt and small edible conflict diamonds.
Adding to the contradiction pile, our ship was called the Independence of the Seas and I for one felt INCREDIBLY INDEPENDENT as other humans cleaned my room and made me martinis.
There were many things about the Independence of the Seas that were almost right, but not really, leading me to the inevitable conclusion that this particular cruise ship was designed by aliens with only a loose grasp of human culture.
Each level of the elegant three story main dining room was named after a Shakespeare play. In particular, a Shakespearean tragedy. This led to a delightful moment of hearing a man with a heavy southern drawl loudly and repeatedly asking a steward, “Where is Macbeth? Where’s Macbeth? I can’t find Macbeth!”
Dining rooms named after Shakespearean tragedies is the set-up to a choose-your-own-punchline-adventure joke. Turn to page 57 for “at least they didn’t choose The Tempest.” Turn to page 163 for “I hope the dining room isn’t named after Titus Andronicus.” Turn to page 269 for “WHY DON’T THEY JUST CALL THE SHIP THE TITANIC?”
The ship was also lousy with challenging art. I don’t mean challenging as in thought provoking, I mean most of the artwork was so aggressively weird I felt like it was actually challenging me to a fistfight.
There was the picture of a deer looking at its own mounted head.
There was an elegant print you could buy of a famous human named Jack Nicholson farting.
There was a photograph that I believe was called “Buff-Man in the Shadows” or “Child of Light with Huge Pecs” or “Terrifying Live-Action Family Circus.”
There was an illustration of spaceships from Star Wars sinking naval ships.
Here you can truly see the aliens trying. They know a lot of humans like Star Wars so, hey, why not some pictures from Star Wars? How about some ships? How about two of the most obscure ships only seen in Return of the Jedi? Yes, that sounds good. We’ll have a picture of TIE-interceptors and A-Wings. What should they be doing? How about destroying something? Sounds good, but let’s make it relatable. What if they were sinking other ships?
YES! The spaceships should be sinking naval ships–VERY MUCH LIKE THE ONE THE HUMANS ARE FLOATING ON RIGHT NOW! I think the humans would enjoy that! Alien high-five! Or high-seven depending on their anatomy!
The ship also had a promenade or mall in the center as if commerce itself could keep us afloat. One of the storefronts was a pizza place called Sorrento’s which I choose to believe is Italian for “Sorry, humans.”
Many of us went there to get late night pizza. The pizza was available all day, but this pizza is like a great jazz club, a vampire, or texting your ex. It belongs to the night.
The pizza is not good. It’s also not bad. It’s almost pizza but not quite. It’s like eating the Uncanny Valley.
I could go on and on about the strange cruise.
I could tell you the aliens also chose a ridiculous name for our toilet paper.
Heavenly Choice. So much wrong packed into just two words. The act is almost as completely opposite of heavenly as you can get and, hopefully, there’s not a lot of choice involved. It’s not shopping for a new car, it’s basic cleanliness. Come on, aliens.
I could also tell you how the aliens took a part of Haiti and renamed it Labadee and then used it to exactly recreate an island from the Nintendo Gamecube era video game Super Mario Sunshine.
Seriously, try saying LABADEE in Mario’s voice and it all comes together.
The point is my whole time on the ship I was overwhelmed by this idea, this sensation of aliens struggling to make sense of normal human culture.
By the last day I realized I was enjoying the cruise even more because of that. Normal human culture is weird. Normal human culture on a cruise ship is weirder STILL.
But everything makes more sense when you’re inside it.
It’s only when you pull back and look at it from a distance that you can see the absurdity and often the joy of how not normal what you’re doing is.
On the last day of the cruise, I thought I was in a room with a bunch of awesome people listening to my friend Molly Lewis sing some songs.
Then I let myself drift back and see it from the outside. I was standing in a fake goth club on a cruise ship listening to Molly sing a song about a detachable, flying vagina with a man dressed as Super Mario.
And it was great.
So thanks to Jonathan, the Sea Monkeys, the skies, the seas, the aliens, the night pizza, and all the weirdness in our vast universe for another fun week on a boat.
This post was made possible by Patreon! If you enjoy my work, you can keep more coming by pledging a few bucks per blog post!
Filed under Comedy Trip, Uncategorized
Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Batman. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s the basic idea that he’s a mature, psychologically complex man who dresses up like an animal to strike fear in the hearts of criminals. This strikes me as noble. I feel like a lot of real life men are animals who dress up like humans so they can strike fear in Starbuck’s employees when they fuck up their lattes. Batman’s way seems better.
Anyway, here’s a collection of some of my recent and future Strong Bat Feelings. I did a superhero themed stand-up comedy show this summer at CONvergence sci-fi fantasy convention. It was really hard not to make the whole show about Batman. Here’s a clip on Why Batman is Awesome. If you enjoy it, you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel and share the video far and wide.
I felt I earned that beer. Thanks, Batman.
You can also read up on my quest to witness a guy dressed up as Batman eating a taco. As many Batmen have shared with me, the cowl makes it difficult to eat a taco, which only makes the quest more difficult and exciting.
Finally, I’m doing a Batman episode of my podcast Obsessed on Saturday, Nov 2nd in Minneapolis. You can buy tickets here. The show features DC Comics artist Christopher Jones, comedian Anna Weggel, and improviser Tim Hellendrung.
UPDATE!!!
Thanks to the efforts of my pal Molly Lewis at Geek Girl Con, a Batman was captured in the wild eating a taco. Thanks to Steve Petrucelli (@wizzer2801) for capturing and sending the picture below:
When I saw this, I wept. I would still like to see a Batman eating a taco, in person, with my own two eyes. But that’s a side quest.
Up next, I’ll be looking for the following superheroes eating the following items:
Superman eating a hot dog.
Wonder Woman eating nachos.
Wolverine eating some poutine
and perhaps, most importantly,
Aquaman eating a Filet-O-Fish from McDonald’s.
Thanks, Bat Friends! More to come!
Filed under Comedy Real Life
Greg Benson of Mediocre Films, Ken Plume of A Site Called Fred, and Bill Corbett of RiffTrax join Joseph Scrimshaw and co-host Molly Lewis live at the 2013 Dragon Con for a rousing discussion of their respective obsessions: Jimmy Stewart, The Muppets, and the obscure movie Billy Jack. Topics include but are not limited to zombie Jimmy Stewart, intense hatred of Gary The Muppet, the value of karate in a young boy’s life, and many improv scenes of Jimmy Stewart eating things. Plus the Obsessed theme song is played live by Molly Lewis!
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I recently returned from spending a week in a giant hotel that floated around the Caribbean. The floating hotel was filled with awesome performers, friends, fans, and employees who wanted to aggressively sell me booze every waking moment.
All of this awesomeness was because of Jonathan Coulton’s JoCoCruiseCrazy.
Everything about the cruise was great. The other performers, the attendees (they self-identify as Sea Monkeys), and all of the events both official and unofficial. Even the things that weren’t necessarily great were amusing. (The staff really did want to sell you more stuff at all times. I’m surprised they don’t have staff members with mini-bars in each individual bathroom stall. It would be efficient.)
I did a brand new show on the mainstage that went really well. It was a light comedy show about all of my flaws as a human being. Stylistically, it’s a Frankenstein’s monster made out of parts of stand-up comedy, storytelling, theater, and drinking beer with friends. I’ve done a lot of different kinds of comedy performance, but this particular beast is the kind of show I want to be doing, so the warm reception was very gratifying. Hopefully, I’ll be doing more performances of the show and eventually recording it.
I also got to record an episode of my podcast Obsessed with my pals Molly Lewis, Mike Phirman, and Wil Wheaton. They were hilarious, insightful, and all-around perfect guests for the podcast, so go check out the beer and pro-tools episode and rate the hell out of the podcast on iTunes.
The kind Sea Monkeys also bought up all the copies of my book and comedy album that I brought on the boat. I performed a live riff with Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy. I played a starship simulator video game called Artemis live on stage. I danced to the mad DJ skillz of David Rees and John Hodgman. I decided Paul (of Paul and Storm) could use some interpretive dance (aka mime humping) during his rockin’ karaoke version of “Wanted Dead Or Alive.” I accidentally walked past the door to my stateroom while entirely sober and the steward pointed and laughed for a full thirty seconds. My lovely wife, Sara, did an amazing job helping the shows run smoothly backstage. Sara and I also had a nice romantic moment when we were terrified by the infamous hanging monkey towel animal.
I could go on and on about the cruise, but strangely the event that gave me the most perspective happened on the way home. (For more on the cruise itself, I suggest watching Greg Benson’s hilarious videos, reading Jonathan’s wrap up or Sea Monkey Alice’s blog post.)
The Sea Monkeys have a kind habit of applauding the performers when they enter the ship’s dining room. When Sara and I walked down the aisle of our packed plane home, two Sea Monkeys quietly, lightly applauded. We had a brief chat about accepting our transition back into the real world.
“We want to yell the thing, but we can’t,” said the Sea Monkeys. The thing was an ongoing joke to yell “SEX PARTY!” during performances. Definitely not the thing to yell on a crowded plane.
But it was a lovely moment to share. The mood on the cruise is very supportive and intense like we’re all members of a kindness cult.
Strangely, the man I sat next to on the plane turned out to actually be a member of a cult.
He was very friendly and not wearing robes or waving a dagger or anything. Let’s say his name was Ed. He was probably in his 50s, he smiled a lot, and told me he owned a feed mill in Amsterdam. He didn’t make any jokes about milling pot for animals. I didn’t either.
After the normal small talk, he told me that he had been in Orlando for a week to learn about approaching the world with kindness.
“That’s nice,” I thought. “I’ve been on a floating hotel doing a comedy/music convention that spent a lot of time celebrating kindness. Maybe I should have an open mind.”
Then he gave me a card for Avatar, the Compassion Project. I looked up Avatar. It’s been described as Scientology-Lite. It was founded by a guy who got sued by the Church of Scientology for ripping off their materials, so he went rogue. To review, this organization was formed by a man who was too morally bankrupt to be a Scientologist.
Ed told me the program had taught him to mill feed for animals in a manner that exposed rabbits to their inner happiness. I am not making this up. Ed wanted me to read a passage from his new Avatar book. It had blown his mind.
Around the same time, a child in the seat in front of us started yelling about how to spell Mickey Mouse. The child insisted that there is no “e.” That it’s spelled M-I-C-K-Y. (Much like Scottish Whisky has no e, so she must be a fan of single malt Scottish cartoon mice.) The child decided to prove she was right by repeatedly yelling “KY!”
I tried to focus on the passage in an effort to be friendly toward the smiling man who believed a bastardized version of Scientology can make bunnies reach their full potential. I was pretty sure I would think the passage was manipulative bullshit, but I might as well be friendly.
This was the greatly paraphrased gist of the passage:
Any text that spreads the message of kindness (like this one) is holy. Anyone who speaks against a holy message is a monster. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with what this book says about kindness is a horrible, evil person.
I finished reading and said, “Okay.”
Ed smiled and said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
The child screamed, “KY!”
“That passage changed my life,” Ed said.
“Huh,” I answered.
“KY!”
I decided the best form of kindness I could show Ed and myself was to not go on a rant about how awful and disturbing I found his life changing passage.
Instead, I turned and chatted with Sara for a few minutes. Ed got lost in his book again. The child still screamed “KY!” long after her parents had agreed, “Yeah, sure, that’s how you spell Mickey. Please stop screaming KY.”
A lot of the performers and the Sea Monkeys had spent a week on JoCoCruiseCrazy pushing themselves to try new things. New songs, new jokes, new games, new drinks, new people, new experiences, new and inappropriate times and places to yell “SEX PARTY!”
There was a significant amount of discussion that people felt safe to try new things during the cruise because there was an almost surreal level of support, encouragement, and kindness.
Real, simple kindness. Like, “Hey, you should try karaoke. All we ask is that you try hard and have fun and we will applaud. We won’t lie to you and tell you you’re great if you’re not, but we sure as hell won’t laugh at you or throw things.”
If there is a passage about karaoke in the Avatar books I’m sure it’s vile and manipulative stuff teaching the important lesson that ONLY AVATAR CAN SHOW YOU THE WAY TO TRUE KARAOKE AND ONLY IF YOU PAY US A LOT OF MONEY AND HARSHLY JUDGE ALL WHO QUESTION THE ONE TRUE KARAOKE.
And I have a horrible feeling that the ONE TRUE AVATAR KARAOKE SONG is probably “Free Bird.”
In short, I’m very happy to have gone to my own week long seminar on kindness. One that happened organically and honestly without an agenda. One that happened simply because people felt safe to say, “Hey, is it cool if I try something new?”
And the only response they got from the rest of the Sea Monkeys was a resounding, “Yes!”
Usually followed by a resounding “SEX PARTY!”
Thanks, friends.
Filed under Comedy Trip
Wil Wheaton loves beer! Mike Phirman loves Pro-Tools audio software! Molly Lewis plays the Obsessed theme live! A very special episode of Obsessed recorded live on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean sea for Jonathan Coulton’s JoCoCruiseCrazy! Find out the answer to the following questions and more: What is Wesley Crusher’s favorite beer? Could Mike Phirman kill a man with kindness? Why did Molly Lewis smash a pizza box with a ukulele? Plus, Wil and Mike make sex noises to advertise Joseph’s comedy album VERBING THE NOUN. (Also, if you’re a knitter, listen in the background to hear the clicking noises of the live audience’s crafting!)
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I suspect I am not alone in feeling as though I am never really getting enough done. While I try not to procrastinate too much, I do make jokes about procrastinating a lot. When I realize I’m procrastinating, I have a lot of little motivational phrases I say out loud to myself. One of them is this:
“Get back to work, you idiot.”
And if I don’t get back to work, I sometimes follow up with:
“You are a bad and stupid person.”
Then I feel guilty that I’m being so mean to myself and I try to make it up to me by allowing myself to make a joke on Twitter about procrastinating. And the cycle continues.
This year, I decided to actually review my calendar and make a list of (almost) everything I did. Please enjoy procrastinating from your work to read about mine!
January
I worked with John Kovalic on some spec scripts and started writing daily tweets for @DrBlinkShrink.
I did two shows at The San Francisco SketchFest. CineMadness with Bill Corbett and a short version of my geek stand-up/storytelling show, Comedy of Doom.
I performed the role of “Balthazar, D & D Champion” in promotional videos for a company called Awesome Dice.
I co-wrote an internal awards show for General Mills.
I made jokes on Twitter about procrastinating.
February
I launched the Obsessed podcast as both a live show in Minneapolis and released the first episode online. There have been 10 live shows that have generated 16 podcast episodes.
I wrote a sketch for a magician.
I wrote and performed (with Shanan Custer) a commentary about smartphones for Minnesota Public Radio.
I did a story with the spoken word collective The Rockstar Storytellers.
I was one of the entertainers on JoCoCruiseCrazy II. I performed a full length version of Comedy of Doom. I was thrilled to get a surprise volunteer named Wil Wheaton for my Star Trek bit. I also played the role of “Ed McMahon” on Paul & Storm’s podcast with Paul F. Tompkins.
I gave a talk in a bar about zombies and Minnesota geek culture for the Minnesota Historical Society.
I made jokes on Facebook about procrastinating.
March
I performed at the Twin Cities convention Mars Con.
I started working as an occasional writer and performer on Wits. Since March, I’ve written for and/or performed with Tim Meadows, Rhett Miller, Andy Richter, Reggie Watts, Fred Willard, Paul F. Tompkins, Wyatt Cenac, Bobcat Goldthwait, Amy Sedaris, Dave Foley, Mike Doughty, Maria Bamford, and Brandi Carlile. And of course host John Moe, John Munson and The Witnesses, and other frequent Wits performers Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, and Neil Gaiman.
I went out to eat with my wife on her birthday. She mentioned maybe I should write a book.
I made jokes on Google+ about procrastinating.
April
I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.
I wrote and did eight performances of a one person stand-up show about vampires, stand-up, and vampires doing stand-up called The Sad Vampire Comedy Hour.
I wrote and performed a short story as part of a Minnesota Public Radio showcase led by Kevin Kling.
I did three performances and presentations about using comedy to discuss history for the American Alliance of Museums convention.
I did not get around to making any jokes on social media about procrastinating.
May
I launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the book version of Comedy of Doom.
I wrote a lot of new material for the book. I edited the material from the stage version. I took photos for the cover and organized all the illustrations for the book. I hit refresh on the Kickstarter page roughly 700 times a day.
My odd little rock band called Math Emergency (composed of a math professor, a public radio producer, a public radio host, and me) played a gig. I played the drums and made jokes into a microphone.
I appeared on the AON podcast.
I made jokes on Twitter about spending too much time on Twitter.
June
I went on my friends’ annual bar crawl. I only note this because, while fun, going to 13 bars in 12 hours does feel a bit like work.
I appeared on the Vilification Tennis podcast where I cemented my reputation as an Axl Rose apologist.
I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.
I did multiple rounds of proofing and editing on the book and we sent it off to be printed. Comedy of Doom was officially published on June 20, 2012.
I wrote the pilot for an animated series version of the web comic Least I Could Do.
I made mean jokes about Google+ on Twitter.
July
We sent out all the copies of Comedy of Doom to the kind Kickstarter backers.
I attended the big Twin Cities convention CONvergence. I wrote and performed a one person storytelling and stand-up show about romantic advice for geeks called Verbing The Noun. We’ll be releasing a CD and digital download of the show in time for Valentine’s Day 2013. I did a live Obsessed show with Paul Cornell and Bonnie Burton. I did 10 other comedy panels and a signing for Comedy of Doom.
I went to San Diego Comic-Con. I performed at w00tstock. I had fun meetings, fancy parties, and saw a lot of men dressed as Jedi having a hard time at urinals.
I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.
I co-wrote and performed a comedy show called Comedy: The Show with Four Humors Theater on the Centennial Showboat in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I made a quick trip to Los Angeles for a friend’s birthday party. I even wrote something for that.
I made mean jokes about Google+ on Facebook.
August
I wrote, produced, and performed in an hour long one act play called Nightmare Without Pants for the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Here is a three minute live video preview of the show, in which I perform an accidental magic trick with a pair of rip-away pants.
Due to the stubborn forward movement of time I became a year older on August 17th.
I performed and did some comedy panels at Dragon*Con in Atlanta.
I made jokes about Google+ on Google+.
September
I was still at Dragon*Con. For one panel, I was challenged to sing “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” I attempted to do it in the style of Nine Inch Nails. It’s a better song that way.
I did a performance at Space Camp with Marian Call, Molly Lewis, Ken Plume, Phil Plait, and more.
Obsessed was featured on iTunes as “New & Noteworthy” and a “Staff Favorite.”
I co-wrote, helped to organize, and performed in a large awards show for the Minnesota theater community called The Iveys.
I did a podcast with the awesome Len Peralta and became a trading card for his Geek-A-Week series.
I hosted and performed at a viewing of the Doctor Who episode “The Angels Take Manhattan” at The Parkway Theater.
I tried to treat Google+ with a little more respect.
October
I co-produced, directed, and wrote a piece for a theater event called Thirst. It’s a series of short one-act plays performed in a bar. The show had three performances and it was a benefit to fight for Marriage Equality in Minnesota. Here’s the monologue I wrote about Harry Potter and kindness.
I joined The Ladies of Ragnarok (Molly Lewis, The Doubleclicks, and tour manager Dammit Liz) for a leg of their tour. I performed in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Madison. The Ladies also appeared on Obsessed.
I recorded the audiobook version of Comedy of Doom. We’re still working on editing and mastering the hours of audio.
I did another show with the Rockstar Storytellers.
I wrote and performed a ghost story for Torch Theater in Minneapolis.
I played another gig with Math Emergency.
I started a Tumblr account and wrote a thing about Halloween.
November
I used National Novel Writing Month as a motivation to work on some screenplays. I finished plotting and scripting the first drafts of two feature length films. Now working on second drafts.
My wife and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. The traditional gift is iron. The contemporary gift is candy. We gave one another Iron Man Pez dispensers.
I tried to make fun of Google+ on Tumblr, but I felt like I was kicking a puppy.
December
I wrote and performed the short story Adult Santa for The New Standards holiday show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.
We (and by “we” I really mean my wife Sara and my graphic designer, Matthew Foster) made Comedy of Doom available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and many stores in the Twin Cities.
I wrote a story about the grim superhero The Leaping Lord for Paul Cornell’s 12 Blogs of Christmas.
I started writing a new stand-up/storytelling show that I’ll be performing on JoCoCruiseCrazy III.
I started writing another stand-up/storytelling show that I’ll be performing at the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis in March of 2013.
I booked guests for Obsessed through March of 2013.
I wrote some stuff that I’ll perform for my annual New Year’s Eve show at the Bryant Lake Bowl.
I made fun of LinkedIn on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr.
I debated whether or not I should write this. I stared off into space and screwed around on social media. I beat myself up about procrastinating. I forced myself to write this. I read it. I thought about all the amazing creative people I got to meet and work with this year. I ran the post by my wife and business partner without whom none of the above would be remotely possible.
Later tonight, I’ll watch some TV, drink a martini, and think about ways to get even more done in 2013.
I’m going to start by coming up with some new motivational phrases.
I think I’ll try:
“Come on, you idiot, get stuff done so you have something to blog about next year.”
and
“Stop calling yourself an idiot, you jackass.”
And then I’ll hug myself and move on.
Happy New Year’s,
Joseph
Filed under Comedy Real Life
Molly Lewis and The Doubleclicks take a brief break from their Ladies of Ragnarok tour to compete in an obsessive smackdown! Who is the most obsessed? Molly with Star Tours? Angela with Portland City Planning? Aubrey with audio equipment? Or random audience volunteer (and Molly’s boyfriend) Ben with fine menswear? Plus, awkward questions about intimacy!
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