Posted in Uncategorized on August 15, 2008 by mightybest
Ooohhh, man. I haven’t posted much lately, but taking a lunch break from laying out the Alamo Guide this afternoon, I read Slate’s round up of commercials that suck. At one point, they’re talking about the salad dressing that uses Spank Rock’s Bump as the theme and how odd that is. Then Seth Stevenson linked to some Filthy Sex Toy, I fell into a YouTube hole, and I came back out with this, the reason that I had to post today no matter what.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present STROKE MY DICK live:
Posted in Showing Off on July 3, 2008 by mightybest
So for those of you who don’t know, last year I decided to become one of the assholes who are destroying Austin by buying a condo in a new high rise. I know, I should have bought a bigger house on the east side that I could have spent a lot of my time painting and furnishing and fixing, but I figured that since these condos were going up anyway, I might as well get inside one and see what it’s actually like. Well, this week I had my first chance to do that:
That’s a quickie video I took while my parents and I were walking around and looking for construction damages. Well, they looked for construction damages. I mostly looked out the window and stood on the balcony and said, “Damn! I get to stand out here whenever I want?” over and over again.
It’s stupid small, sure, but that city view is soooo rad, and I’ve got plenty of space for all of the things I need and actually use, plus crazy luxuries like a dishwasher and an oven that will actually work, so I’m excited.
Stay tuned for posts about me trying to pack up everything from my current house, including lots and lots of pictures of me crying, I’m sure.
Posted in Showing Off on June 10, 2008 by mightybest
So I made my YouTube version of this video private because I felt kinda bad for the kids in it, but the other night Sarah and I were heading home from downtown when we saw the Texas governor’s mansion still on fire, when only one firetruck was there trying to fight it. Not one to be cautious or overly respectful, I pulled the car into the closest parking spot I could find, ran over to the flames, and filmed this video of the firefighters trying to get into the door and kids telling their story about calling 911:
I thought the kids sounded like anyone who’d seen something crazy and unexpected, but when I sent the YouTube version to the Austinist and commenters started being jerks to them, they asked both me and the Austinist to take it down. I obliged, because I didn’t want to cause them a lot of annoyance just because they had fun talking to me in the middle of the night, but I was kind of annoyed myself by the quote the Austinist had from the kid Robbie and his plea to have the video taken down.
“I, as well as the others interviewed, have not given consent for it’s [sic] public use or posting,” he told us. “It has already caused my family grief, and created an uncomfortable work environment between me and my colleagues.”
Funny, because when I turned on the camera I said, “Hey, can you guys retell me the story of how you saw the fire on camera, so I can submit it to the Austinist and the Chronicle? I bet people would be interested to see what it’s like here right now.”
They all said, “Yes. Yes we will repeat the story we just told you on camera so that you may broadcast it publicly.”
Okay, that’s not a verbatim quote, but they did say yes. Still, out of sympathy or whatever I’ve taken it off YouTube, the site most people troll looking for videos. But there’s still a Vimeo of it up, and I thought I’d share the story with the three readers of this blog, which should do less damage to all of their colleagues.
The weirdest thing is that I don’t think the kids were being that bad. It was two in the morning, they were seeing something crazy, and they made a joke about a shirtless guy. I’ve been known to make much stupider jokes at 2 in the morning. Kids shouldn’t let one stupid commenter on Austinist dictate how they feel about their latenight selves. There are servers at Starseeds who can do that for them.
Last week AICN hosted a sneak preview screening of THE INCREDIBLE HULK with Tim Roth and the director of the film in person. I could tell you all about my opinion of the film and how it holds up compared to IRON MAN, but the Internet is full of that already. I just wanted to let you show you that picture of me painted all green, in case you hadn’t seen it on Sarah’s blog yet.
See, I had this idea - well, a realization, actually - that it wouldn’t matter what I said as I was hosting the screening, as long as I looked silly/passionate while doing it. And since I had no idea what sort of show flow the Universal reps were going to want, I had no other way of preparing for the showtime. So I thought to myself, “Hey, I could go get one of those fake muscle Incredible Hulk costumes from Lucy’s!” But I’d just done the Iron Man costume on KXAN, so I thought maybe something… more. And really, why get fake muscles when god already gave me a chest like this?
The highlight of the whole evening, therefore, was when Tim Roth came down to the autograph table, picked up a microphone, and told me that I looked stupid. “Thanks for insulting me, Mr. Movie Star,” was my big come back. HENRI SMASH!
Later on, the director referenced my ridiculous appearance when he was defending his decision to go with a CGI Hulk.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 23, 2008 by mightybest
In our programming meeting yesterday, we were talking about bringing a YouTube Battle show to the theater in our next calendar, where the idea would be sort of like Open Screen Night, but instead of playing whatever videos people brought with them to the theater, we’d play whatever videos on YouTube people clicked to. We’re going to set up the whole thing like an Air Guitar contest, with people fighting to win the audience’s approval in order to go home with fantastic prizes, and we thought it’d be super fun to bring out an actual Internet star to have them participate in the battle and find their own versions of the craziest shit they can find online. The trouble is, everyone else is already getting the Internet stars to go all over the place.
A couple of weeks ago, South Park aired their brilliant episode where Butters becomes famous online in an attempt to settle the WGA (World Canadian Bureau) strike, and Stan and the boys have to get in line behind all the other famous Internet stars who are waiting for all of their money to come in. Things get out of hand, and it’s awesome:
Then today, Weezer released their new awesome video, featuring… Internet stars doing the things they do in the videos that made them famous. There’re the Diet Coke and Mentos guys, and of course the now smug Numa Numa kid. I hate that kid, but this video is awesome:
But it makes me wonder. The South Park scene is funny because it’s all about how you can’t make money online. And sure, you can’t expect to sing-along to a song from Germany on your webcam and then automatically have advertisers come knocking on your web site’s door. But if millions of people have seen your video, you can still make your Internet fame pay off the same way indie bands make money after the music bloglines pick up on them - you go on tour and play every single music fest in the world, so that more bloggers write about you and more and more people start coming to your shows, even though most of them don’t understand what that whole Glass Candy thing is supposed to be about.
And now I’m nervous and thinking that I won’t be able to afford any of the couch humpers to come judge an Air Sex show after all. They’ve totally stopped writing Brad back when he leaves them MySpace messages. Boo!
Posted in Uncategorized on May 15, 2008 by mightybest
So two weeks ago I posted about my regular weekly gig going on KXAN to talk about the weekend’s upcoming movies. I dressed as Iron Man, the cameraman liked my white socks, and Chris Willis enjoyed talking about how great my legs looked when the cameras weren’t on. It was a great time. But not nearly as great as what happened last week, when I brought filmmaker Kevin Ford and Eddie “Crabman” Steeples in to discuss their new movie, WHEN IS TOMORROW?
Before the cameras were rolling, they were planning out how they would do a bit sort of in character, bickering about what the movie was about, playing off each other, and trying to make something more interesting than just saying, “Our movie was written by us, and we used a camera to film it…” They succeeded in making the clip more interesting when Kevin caught himself by surprise and said, “I made the fucking movie!” Whoops.
The booking producer for the KXAN Noon News told me that this week they’ll have a segment featuring someone from the Chronicle talking about food, and that “Austin at the Movies” will be on hiatus for a couple of weeks.
Last weekend, Michelle Mower and the good people of SWAMP offered to pay my way to have me drive to Houston so I could emcee and moderate a Q&A for Amber Benson’s indie film LOVERS, LIARS AND LUNATICS. Amber’s best known for her role as Tara, Willow’s lover on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. I’m best known as the guy who ran the Buffy Sing-Alongs in Austin, so the chance to meet someone from the show, much less someone I’d sung along with dozens of times before, was not something I was going to let pass me by.
The screening was at the Rice Media Center, a small screening room on the Rice campus that I wasn’t aware existed but Sarah knew all about from her days going to school there. I’m not sure how they publicized it, other than newsletters to their members and some posters around the campus, but it was kind of fun (and luxurious) to not have to worry about it. This wasn’t my event, I just got to be the host.
That in and of itself was a weird thing. Because, really? They were willing to pay for my gas (insert obligatory comment about the high price of gas this summer here) and get me a hotel room just so I could be the guy pointing at audience members and saying, “Yes, you. What’s your question for Amber?” I was flattered, but also a bit confused when Michelle asked me to come out for that. But like I said, my confusion was in no way going to make me pass the opportunity to meet one of the Scoobies by.
Instead, I wanted to take my duties seriously so that I could actually perform a service that was worth the trouble and expense for the group putting the whole screening together. I’ve certainly been to my share of both good and bad Q&A’s, and I think I have an idea about how to do them right, so I figured this would be as good a chance as any to test them out.
See, some Q&A’s don’t have an emcee at all, and the filmmaker or special guest or whoever just comes out on the stage, awkwardly laughs for a minute, asks if the crowd has questions, and then things go from there. Thats simple, and it can work, but the beginning is always a little bit of a stutterfest. There’s almost never a hand raised immediately, as the crowd is a little bit shy to address this person they admire. So then the guest says, “Well, I guess if there are no questions, I can just go home then!” Everyone laughs, then someone decides to be brave and just shouts out a question. To me that always feels a little jarring and gets the mood in the room down to a weird level.
Other times, a Q&A will have an emcee who’s directly involved in bringing the guest in, and that emcee can easily fall into either the “I’m so great, and I put this thing on because I’m awesome. Don’t you think I’m awesome?” trap, or the “Look how well I know this guest. It’s like we’re friends. I’m going to mention something about our conversation backstage just to let you guys know that me and this guest are really good friends.” Both of those are horrible and just leave you feeling bad for the host. Of course, nothing is worse than the, “I will now ignore the audience and ask my own horrible question” trap. Ooohhhh, that’s just the worst.
but I think there’s a way you can have an emcee run a Q&A so that it feels more like a conversation, and from my experience with Amber, I think it definitely works. What I try to do is have a couple of questions ready to go at the beginning, and I’ll ask the guest those preplanned questions before turning it over to an audience Q&A. During the time when I’m asking my question or two, I’ll be sort of candid and ask a follow up question if the guest leaves some thought hanging, sort of playing like I’m a talk show host instead of a moderator. That can get the ball rolling, and it serves two purposes - the audience has time to think about what questions they want to ask, and you can prep with the guest and have them ready with one of their best anecdotes so the audience gets to hear that story right out of the gates. I feel like that worked in this session with Amber, but you can judge for yourself. Here’s the beginning of the Q&A. I slipped up just a little bit right off the bat, but then went into asking her about how she financed the movie.
At any rate, even if you thought my technique was horrible, Amber was awesome, and totally started getting into telling full stories at every question. My favorite, and I think everyone’s favorite, is her description of what it was like to shoot the climax (literally) for the Under Your Spell song in Once More With Feeling (the Buffy musical episode for anyone completely uninitiated:
So yeah, all in all, I think it was a success, and hopefully SWAMP is happy that they decided to bring me out. Plus, Amber and I are totally best friends now, and we shared all sorts of stories backstage. I’d tell you about them, but that just seems so tacky, doesn’t it?
For the past couple of months or so, Laney Valian and the good people over at KXAN have been foolish enough to invite me on to their Friday noon newscast to talk about the weekend’s movies. I posted a video of an appearance on there last month, when I brought John Erler with me and he taught us all how to make an E.T. mask while we talked about that Master Pancake show. This afternoon, I wore an Iron Man costume I’d rented from Lucy In Disguise, then proceeded to talk about how excited I’m not for MADE OF HONOR. But all Chris Willis wanted to talk about were my socks. Check it out, if you dare:
And Chris, if you’re reading this - one day I’m actually going to post all the things you say after the cameras stop rolling. How come you’ll talk about how good my butt looks in the costume off the air, but on the official record you’re too shy? Hmm??
I didn’t have a seat in last night’s sneak peek of IRON MAN at South Lamar, but after hearing everyone talk about how incredibly awesome the film is I’m even more psyched to go see it with some scotch this weekend at the Ritz. But even though I decided to save my IRON MAN viewing experience for the full Tony Stark treatment with the whiskey sours and scotch flights, I still managed to make it out for the Jet Pack Guy’s (incredibly short but still) awesome performance. In case you weren’t there, or if you just need to live it again, I put together a quickie video of the fun:
Also, I know the hiss comes off as a bit loud in the video, but you should have heard it live. If you came out to see the jet pack guy and didn’t put in the ear plugs we provided you, all the Dolby digital in the world couldn’t have been turned up loud enough for your massacred ears to still hear the dialog during the film. The jet pack was very, very loud. And I really, really want to fly one for myself. If any of you find a good deal on jet packs on Ebay or something, I’ll totally go in on it with you.
So here’s how it started – a couple of years ago, my girlfriend Sarah and I were watching the music video for R. Kelly’s “Step in the Name of Love.” Besides featuring the amazing crooning of R. at his finest, this video dazzled us with its depiction of a night time yacht cruise in the lake by Chicago. “Hey,” I told her, “we should throw our own boat party where everyone has to dress in white like that. We could play Step in the Name of Love at the party, and it would totally feel like we were living in the video!” Sarah, of course, immediately agreed, and so was born the White Boat Party.
This year, in the middle of “winter,” Sarah and I were talking about how great that party was, and how we’d really like to repeat it with something similar, but not the exact same sort of outfits. But what should we do? An All Black party? A rainbow party? Then I remembered a promotion I’d wanted to do back when the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie was coming out – a Pirate Party! We’d have everyone on the boat dressed as a pirate, and in the middle of the party another pirate ship would attack and make our captain walk the plank! But an idea this good needed to be shared with more people than we had in our immediate group of friends, and since I initially wanted to do it as part of a movie promotion, it made sense to make it an official Alamo event, too. I talked to Tim about it, and he agreed that we can totally have genre parties and events where we throw a party with the same enthusiasm and passion we have for movies, even if we don’t actually show a movie at the party at all. After all, if we’re all dressed as pirates and defending our ship and looking for treasure, isn’t it like living in a movie? We were going to find out.
And you guys, let me just say – wow. This party was a massive success. From the first moments of serenely cruising out into the open seas while I blared the theme song from The Curse of the Black Pearl down to the sweaty dance party that led to embarrassing make out sessions and a few people vomiting off the top of the boat and inadvertently hitting people on the lower deck, the first Alamo Pirate Party was a raging success and definitely one for the history books. Check it out:
Sarah and I doing our best pirate faces at the beginning of the trip. I learned very quickly that I am horrible at making pirate faces.
The Dread Pirate Roberts showed up to let everyone know that this was his ship, and he would most likely kill us tomorrow.
When we got to Treasure Island and I told people that there were gold doubloons they could collect for prizes, the Dread Pirate Roberts was unsurprisingly the first one to climb the cliffs of insanity.
These guys didn’t have a lot of luck finding gold on the island, but they made up for it by showing us how to actually make pirate faces. Show offs.
With the gold collected, we headed back out to open waters. Little did I know that a mutiny had been planned…
Tim League showed up looking especially rogue-ish, and he told the crowd that he’d had enough of my smooth sailing music and was ready to bring Car Stereo (Wars) to the sound booth. And so to punish me for not being awesome enough, he made me walk the plank:
The water was freezing, but it was worth it, because the dance party that went on for the next three hours was totally amazing, and Car Stereo (Wars) delivered, as always.
After the boat party, a bunch of us met up again on Sixth Street to invade Treasure Island. That may not have been the best idea in the world…
And so there you have it – the very first Alamo Pirates Party. If you were fortunate enough to be on our ship last weekend and have other photos or videos, please tell us about ‘em and leave some links or embeds in the comments of this blog! We’d totally love to relive the party all over again from your perspective, too.
Up next in our new series of random parties that have nothing to do with anything except the fact that we really want to throw them is the first Alamo Crawfish Boil, currently being planned for late May. I’ll let you know more about that situation as we figure it out.
