Another New Streak

My post from yesterday didn't make it up. So, 12/29/06...the new streak begins again. Kinda frustrating for the organization right out of the gate. I mean, guys work so hard in the off-season and you come out here...and something like that happens...it's just a shame. I feel bad for our guys who were so committed. They were in here every day, in the film room, working out...I'll probably get fined for saying this but I don't care; my guys deserve better.

I went to 'THE Topaz' last night. Both audience members could tell you how bad I was. I haven't really had to a chance to travel to an open microphone for many moons and actually try some new things. I did nothing but brand new ideas. Mabye...maybe one good one in there. Always says a lot about your creative process when you have 10 ideas you think are great, you leave them alone for a week, come back and look at them and then realize you only have 4 good ideas, take them to the stage and realize that only 1 of those ideas might have legs.

I'm headlining the show at the Bethesda Hyatt tomorrow night. My buddy Kojo Mante is on the show. I heart Kojo. He's a really smart guy who has taken to comedy the right way. He constantly works at it, listens to guys who have been there, and has some great material. He's also patient. He's not like a lot of comics who want to rush to get paid. It's not about that. I was like that and it was to my detriment. I didn't have anyone to tell me that I was an idiot. Where was Joe Robinson's blog then? Huh Joe? You selfish a$$. Yeah, start writing advice after I already make the mistakes. Why do I do that? I'll tell you why. It's because you're a farty face. I didn't mean that. Come to the show on Saturday. It starts at 8.

Right now, you're going: 'That's great Danny, but who is the guy in the picture up there?' That is who comes up when you google Joe Robinson in images. I don't do much at work.

My next post will likely be in the New Year. I know this is kind of bush league but I wanted to take a second and say a few things to the couple people that read this blog. Here they are:

1) Thank you.

2) 2006 has been a pretty amazing year for me and a lot of my friends in and out of comedy. I am so thankful for all my friends both in the crowds that have come to support me and behind the scenes that have helped me grow as a comic and as a person.

3) I am hopeful for even more in 2007. I had some rough lessons in the '06 and I cannot wait to grow and become better and am incredibly excited to watch my friends do the same. Each of us has a different piece of iron in the fire and I'm confident we'll all have really awesome swords.

4) I hate saying things like 'help me grow as a person' because that implies I'm somehow awesome now. I always found things like this to be kind of conceited. Example: I almost started crying in Whole Foods last night because they were closing in 10 minutes and I had no idea what I wanted to eat or enough sand in my bags to ask the guy behind the deli to grab me a sandwich because he was busy cleaning up and I was afraid he would hate me because I was delaying his being able to leave. Does that sound like someone who has 'grown as a person'? This is a long way of saying: 'Thank God for my special lady friend'. Seriously.

5) I basically have 2 jobs. I'm so incredibly busy most of the time it's a joke. There are a lot of people who I don't get to see as much as I'd like to and I feel awful about it. It's something that cannot be helped I guess but I hope people know it's not because we had a friend divorce or something.

6) Have a happy and safe start to your new year. Thanks again for reading.

NYE

I am pretty much over New Year's Parties. I am all through paying $200 to wait forever to get drinks and basking in the afterglow of 'expectations' for an evening. If you're single, terrible time to be single as NYE. If you have a _F, it's annoying to spend that much $ to hang out with each other and there is a 37% fight probability. Add this to the fact that some of friends will be non-committal and ultimately not go where you are plus the fact that your boy/girl will always bring someone atrocious to the table that you didn't know before. New Years is like prom for grown-ups.

The other day, my boy Jon and I had the following exchange:

Me: I'm totally dead on spending a lot of money on New Years

Jon: I'm dead on people not wanting to spend money on New Years

Me: We are at an impass

Jon: Not in concert.

Me: OK, talk to you later.

Jon: Thanks so much.

Good talk.

-Former president Gerald Ford passed away. I was embarrassed when I started thinking about how little I actually knew about him. I know that he took over for Nixon...and that Chevy Chase used to fall down a lot impersonating him on SNL...that's it.

-I have watched this video so many times. It is hilarious. This very serious group of guys is playing Warcraft. Lots of subtle bits of humor in here. Observe the seriousness and frustration...and even angst of some of the players because of how meaningful this is.

The rest speaks for itself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

The Birth of Jesus

Almost, 75 years ago this past Monday, Jesus was born. We all celebrated by filling socks up with nickels and hitting those less fortunate than ourselves in the face. Some took it a step further and put the nickels in the frying pan to get them hot and then put them in a re-enforced wool sock and then went to work. This is where the expression: 'She was so ugly, it look like someone beat her with a hot sack of nickels' comes from.

I hope you all had a nice holiday. Mine was quite good but it felt too short. I am back at work today which seems more appalling as the day progresses. That is the thing I miss the most about being in school: the astoundingly long breaks. I'd get up at noon, go work out (it's boring but weights are my life), then go out and get stupid drunk and play video games until 4. That was awesome. Now? I'm back at work the day after Christmas. The other people in the office think is reasonable. I think a happy medium exists between my idea of not going back here until January 22nd and their 'right back at it on Dec 26' philosophy.

I got a ton of dvds for Christmas because I am unimaginative when asked what I want for Christmas. I have taken to labelling them as I have had some shady dvd disappearances over the years.

I am going to the Wizards game tonight as part of a Christmas Gift Package from my SLF (Special Lady Friend). I am excited for this as I haven't been to a game this year. I will save my Wizards analysis for a more private setting...

My week at the Improv was a lot of fun. Eddie Gosling is a really great guy. It's cool that there are guys like him out there in comedy.

Why Am I Here?

I'm at work today. No one knows why right now. It's so weird here. I cannot leave for a while. This goes under the 'annoying' category.

I hope none of you are at work. Because it's dumb.

Come to the Improv tonight and tomorrow night for all 4 shows. Anyone does it, they get a burrito.

Have a great holiday.

#2

Show #2 was a lot of fun. That is the theme of the week. Eddie Gosling is a fun dude. He's a great guy and a great comic. This week has been a blast so far. 8:30 tonight at the DC Improv.

My gmail account was severaly corrupted by a BS Christmas Card virus thingy. I have no idea how it happened but it basically ruined my original. I had to get a whole new adress. Note: this is an a$$ pain. It honks.

My office is pretty deserted today. It will be more so tomorrow. No better time to come to work in my opinion. I smell a Constanza nap under my desk on the morrow...'twil be a grand time indeed. No idea why I went to the British type there...ta ta.

A Joyous Week

Quick hit style:

-Last night's show at the improv with Eddie Gosling was a lot of fun. He's good and he's a really cool guy. That makes it fun.

-Somehow, a bunch of people got some kind of spam/virus/shabingus from me. I have no idea how it happened as I never signed up or anything. This is totally beat. Someone is out to get me. I bet it's the same guy that ripped my act in a comment a few weeks ago. He HATES my 'poorly drawn accents' so he took it out on me with an elaborate fake e-christmas card scam.

-Sometimes in work, we are forced to associate with terrible people. Hypothetically, in my office there could be a horrendous dude. This 0ne pretend guy is about as abrasive as a person can be. This is a man that cannot be bothered to dial phone numbers on his own. He says things like: 'get ____ on the phone'. This is always awkward: 'Yeah, I don't want to talk to you, this other guy does...' We have a pretty neat phone system here dude. Local extension. 4 digits. I will learn you so we can streamline this whole process. Also, go to hell.

-There are lots of movies in the 'Point Break Pantheon'. These are films that, if they are on, I will always watch them through to the end. Here is a quick list. There are more but this is off the top of my head:

-Point Break, Rocky III and IV, Teen Wolf, Die Hard, Major League, Predator, Top Gun, Wildcats, Willow, The Program, and Tremors.

Lots of the above are not good movies. I have no explanation as to why I cannot turn away from them. Other movies that are great, I can go in and out of. I have never been able to figure this out. Anyone who does should get a Nobel Prize.

-Merry Christmas

-Come to shows this week.

The Worst Brawl Ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w18cIAicoE

That's it. That is the brawl. 1 half punch/half slap gets thrown and guys are getting suspended for weeks. Carmelo Anthony got 15 games for that. That is so emabarrasing.

Your average Carolina Hurricans/Atlanta Thrashers 2nd period shabingus has 987 times more carnage. Also, the NHL sucks.

I have several points about this and I'm going to make them now:

1) When this happens in baseball/hockey, its 'fun' or its just a 'frecas' or some kind of cookey word. When it happens in the NBA, people over-react and say that the players are out of control. These are the same people that make the 'high school kids shouldn't play in the NBA' arguments but have no problem with high school players being drafted to toil away in the minor leagues. This is a race issue. People react this way because the majority of NBA-ers are black and baseball players are white. Horrible double standard.

2) The NBA has created its own monster. They promoted individuality, they promoted stars, they promoted the different apparel and the hip hop image. Now, that's who they get. The NFL, with VERY few exceptions, markets the product of football and not stars. The NBA is the exact opposite. You're going to get bad behavior. David Stern (the NBA commissioner) has made his bed and he's trying not to sleep in it.

3) I understand trying to send a message, but the amount of the suspensions is absurd to me. Roughly 1/4 of the remaining season will be taken away from a potential MVP candidate. Of course he deserves to be punished but the amount is nonsense. It stayed on the court (so it wasn't Artest/Jackson/O'Neal/Wallace territory) and it was a shot at a guy who could have seriously injured a teammate with a ridiculous foul. 5 games max. Instead, punishing for the sake of punishing a guy that threw a punch. It's like Stern only listened to one sentence of the story.

4) This shabingus is the classic case of someone trying apply a 'rule' when the thing before you shuold be judged on its own merits. Well, because I punished x for the worst embarrassment in NBA history last year, I have to do the same thing again for one of the least engaged sports fights of all time.

Random items:

-I had ritz chips today. Their deliciousness is unparalleled in the world.
-The Poonanza was awesome
-The show in Sterling happened. There were no witnesses who can say anything bad about me.
-My godson Gilbert Arenas dropped in 60 points last night. One of the more amazing feats in sport I have seen. Especially because he left his 60 points in Kobe Bryant's eyepiece. Note: Kobe Bryant is one of the biggest scumbags ever to live and I dislike him with a high passion.
-This was a very NBA focused blog. Not many people I know like the NBA. Sorry about that.

Tonight...I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight

Brothers! What we do in life echoes in eternity.

-Larry Poon at the 1st writers meeting for the Very Larry Christmas Show and 4 Square Tournament (also Gladiator but Larry Poon does not watch those kinds of movies)

The show is tonight. Packed house at the Warehouse Theater. We're looking at about 110 reserved. That means get there and get there early. The awesomeness of the show will be high and the badness will be low.

Also, I've been so tied up with Poonanza planning, that I totally forgot to mention a really cool show on Saturday. Justin Schlegel and I will be at Ned Devine's in Sterling. Good buddy Rob Maher has hooked up some Saturday night shows at the beautiful venue. Should be a great time. Show starts at 7 which gives you plenty of time to get hammered and go drive in fields.

Finally, I'll be at the DC Improv next week opening for Eddie Gosling. He's funny so you should come to every show and watch every minute. Tuesday-Saturday at the Improv.

1 More Day

I know that there is pain...But you hold on for one more day and Break free the chains...Yeah I know that there is pain, But you hold on for one more day and you Break free, break from the chains...
Some day somebody's gonna make you want toTurn around and say goodbye
Until then baby are you going to let them
Hold you down and make you cry
Don't you know?
Don't you know things can change
Things'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day yeah
If you hold on...

Poonanza.

Yatta

This is my favorite video to watch on the internets. I used to watch this everyday at my old job. My boy and I would do the dancing...sometimes. If you can watch and not laugh, then you are dead inside.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6616479032362244465&q=yatta

Poonanza is shaping up to be wondrous. We had a great rehearsal last night that was hard to get through because the high amount of humor. Larry Poon actually said: 'That...now that is a hoot!'

Friday @ 10:30 PM
Warehouse Theater
$5 tickets.

Let me know if you want to reserve. Do not be the guy that reserves and doesn't show...

Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style'

Poonanza Teaser:

A Russian gym coach, a first date, roller skating, a staff meeting, a web dating service, a concert, a duet, a trip to a strip club, and more.

Friday
10:30 PM
Warehouse Theater

Poonanza

Read in movie trailer voice:

Friday....

One MAN...

Will take other men...and a girl...on the adventure of a lifetime...

Very Larry Poonanza and 4-Square Tournament.

10:30 PM
Warehouse Theater
$5 tickets (reserve tix by emailing: larrypoon1@yahoo.com)

Awesomeness in exchange for currency.

Planned Drunkenness

I am going to get sh*t faced tonight. I rarely drink very much these days because I'm so busy with a job, standup, the meth lab, filming, and other stuff.

Tonight, my buddy is having a holiday party. I have very little to do tomorrow. So, I realized that I have the green light to tee it up and drink my face off. I'm going to be hammered like it was 1997 and it was a Thursday afternoon in high school...

Updates to follow.

The Redskins play the eagles this week. I hate the eagles. I have never been to a Redskins/eagles game where there wasn't some kind of shabingus because of eagles fans behaving terribly. I don't get this. I don't get why they have to be that way. Jon Mumma isn't that way. He blogged about it last week. They boo'ed when their QB got up from an injury. I just couldn't deal with being hated everywhere I went.

A while back, Chris White, who is an eagles fan, said it was awesome to live here and see the Redskins get all excited and fail every year. He said we were the Yankees of the NFL. I agreed for a while but then I realized that is totally wrong. The Jankeez win the division every year. They get to go to the big dance. The Skins have been twice since 1991. We are more like the Knicks of the NFL: terrible player acquisitions that cost us too much money and severe underachievement as a lovely side dish.

Being a DC sportsfan sucks.

Influences

Per the recommendation of my attorney friend Jon, I was thinking about some of the things that have influenced me comedically over the years. I'm going to talk about them and you will probably read them and think about them and agree with them.

Phase 1: Childhood - High School

In Living Color: So important. We forget. It was the first time I ever realized that I had the ability to impersonate when everyone gathered around me in 5th grade and I rocked a little Fire Marshall Bill on Mondays.

Characters:

Fire Marshall Bill: yup
Vera Demylo: Jim Carey's she-male thing. I still talk like this sometimes...when I'm alone
Antoine Jackson: When Damon Wayans was funny, he did the homeless guy and the dude that talked with miss-used big words. Amazing.
Dickie Peterson: another Jim Carey (it was 'James' then). The convinience store security guard. Basically, same voice as Cable Guy years later.
Parnell: Yet another Jim Carey, the nerdy kid with the chick who played 'Edna'. Hilariousness to me.

The Jerky Boys: The afforementioned Jon and I used to roll around listening to the Jerky Boys in the car. We'd force girls to listen to them and quoted them incessantly. It even inspired some real life prank phone calls from various locations.

Characters:

Sol Rosenberg: Reason #88 why Family Guy is great (more on them later) is that they got the guy who did Sol to play 'Mort' on the show (He also plays the bartender). So many good lines.
Frank Rizzo: The gold standard.
Kissell/Pico: No one was quite sure what this voice was, but it was really funny and I could do it. Kissell was always paired with Pico which made me laugh.
Tarbash the Egyptian Magician: incredible
Jack Tors: I am laughing right now as I type this name.

There were of course other sources of humor (Eddie Murphy, Jim Carey films) but those were the two big things.

College - Young Adult (Pre Comedy)

There were more influences in here. My attention was very spread out.

-The Big Lebowski: Incredible litmus test for a girl. If she likes it/gets it, you can talk to her.
-Family Guy: Round 1. Literally, its like they took stuff from when I was a kid, sprinkled it into an amazingly written show with hilarious characters, and then realized: 'its a cartoon. We can do whatever the f*ck we want'. If you are between 18-33 and don't like it, you're Russian.
-South Park: Its old for me now, but when it first hit, pretty awesome stuff. Those guys had the same epiphany: 'we can do whatever we want' and it was on cable so they did some great stuff. If the 'Academy' was't full of sh*t, the South Park Movie would have won best picture (blew American Beauty out of the water)
-Pablo Francisco: he came to GW and did a show. I was mesmerized. We had David Spade once and another guy who I cannot remember. Pablo wasn't a huge name at the time and was better than anything I had ever seen. At that point, the comics who were making it big were Seinfeld type guys doing observational humor and such. Pablo was the first guy I ever saw who did the opposite. He put you in a story and took you the whole way through, painting vivid images and giving so much energy to the crowd. Truly awesome. It made me think that 1) If I ever did comedy I'd want to do it like that 2) I can never do comedy because that guy is too good.
Christopher Guest films: Waiting for Guffman/Best In Show/Spinal Tap

Post Fun Young Adult and Beginning of Comedy Career:

Brian Reagan: if you don't know, its just irresponsible.
Mitch Hedberg: See above.
Dane Cook: Now, no one is more hated. They might all be right. I don't know. What I do know is that I saw that guy at the Improv and he put on the best show I've ever seen for an hour. Period. I was sore from laughing. I bought Harmful if Swallowed and thought it was just the best thing I'd ever heard. He was non-stop. Most every comic you talk to despises this guy but he will always remember how great he was before he was big.
The Office: The British Version. The funniest show with real actors in the history of television. Every character was perfect.

I'm sure I forgot some stuff that I think is funny. This was just off the top of my head.

I will close with a line from the Jerky Boys:

"Yibba dabba yibba dabba yibba dabba..............pooogh...loud"

Officer On Scene...

F&R^T*&FYUHGU%$%&%&#&*%$%$!

I had a long post that I deleted because I'm an idiot. I'm not reposting it. Here is the Cliff Notes version:

-Some cops walked in while Jay Haystings was onstage last night. It was really funny.

-Poonanza is coming. It will be good.

-My fantasy football team with the most tight players ever finished 9th. Absurd.

Fin.

Episode 3

Episode 3 of Buddy Jackson is up. This episode is a stretch for me... in that I play a jackass...which is what I always play...so it's not a stretch at all people...try and keep up.

Shooting that episode was as much fun as I have ever had doing anything ever with the possible exception of building a Lego fortress for my Transformers with my boy Ben and staging giant wars for energon and then eating cold cut sandwhiches with cheetos and drinking cokes and then going back to the wars (Funny Danny fact, when Ben would go over to my house and we'd pick him up, we always brought a small box of Transformers for the car ride. It was the rule. Ben LOVED the planes (Arielbots, Starscream, Blitz, Dirge, Ramjet, and Cyclonous). I preferred the the bigger land based Transformers (my fav of all time was Ultra Magnus) and the ones that formed larger superbots (Devastor, Bruticus, Superion))...

Anyway, go to www.buddyjackson.com and watch the shabingus of mirth. Bang.

The Streak????

I did a short blentry (blog entry) on Friday. I hit publish and then forgot to check and see if it was up. It did not make it onto the 'world wide web'. I think this means that the streak is over. Blog intent does not mean 'blog in fact'. So, after 1 year and a little over 3 months, the streak of posting every day when I was at work, ends. I am not sad, it is just another thing. For your information, here is what I intended to post on Friday. Not much, but it was something:

"Fridays are over-rated. I am always so tired by Friday night that I become slightly cranky and unpleasant in social settings. We are shooting Buddy Jackson stuff for 100 hours this weekend. I'm really excited about what we've done so far and there is a lot of cool stuff to come. I still cannot act."

That was it...

Here is today's topic:

Movie Cheating.

When you and a friend/girlfriend/boyfriend/family member/kidnapper talk about seeing a movie together, and cement a casual-formal pact that you will witness said movie and one or more persons breaks this bond and sees the film with someone else, this is Movie Cheating. I was movie cheated on this past weekend. It didn't feel good. The plus side is that my special lady friend not only has to see the same movie with me, but has to do a make-up movie of my choosing (Eragon. Dec 15 b*tches. This movie looks incredible to me. Read the book and I enjoyed it. As I read, I often thought, this would make a really good movie. Giddyup.)

Day 1 of the new streak...