• Hope everyone’s Q1 of quarantine has been great! Can’t believe we’re already almost at Q2. Really proud of all of you. We exceeded all expectations of how much we could use air fryers, how many books we could read and how well we could follow social distancing rules. Way back in the halcyon days of the beginning of Q1, I shot a short film with my wife Anna Paone without telling her anything about what was going on. I just said, “I’m going to start shooting and we’re going to make it up as we go along.” We didn’t know what was going to happen, the shots or where it would take us. Truth be told, Anna came up with the best lines and improvised the button at the end of the sketch that I think is genius. You can find the link in the comments for this 0:53 oddity called “POTLUCK: The Film.”
• As noted earlier this week, my good friend and former Luke’s Lobster coworker Robert Exley along with his colleague Michelle Fox Theobald generously interviewed me about A Profile About You for their CNBC piece on side hustles in quarantine. This is the first major media coverage I’ve ever received (well, FastCompany wrote about my past company hiring comedians for customer service roles and I was one of them but this is different) and it’s been really incredible to have strangers (six of them!) reach out to me over email and Twitter asking for profiles. This little idea that I was embarrassed to even share because it seemed so niche is now kind of a thing. If you missed the article by chance, the link is in the comments and if you want an article written about you, let’s do it. I want to write about you, the person who read this second paragraph.
Also, it should be noted my good friend and ⅓ of “Way Too Zesty TV” Adam Christopher designed a swanky, new logo for the site as a thank you to me. That’s a little token of appreciation I’m all about celebrating. If you’re looking for a graphic designer by chance, please hit Adam up. You can find him by clicking his linked profile in the previous sentence. I’ll even go out on a limb and will say he’ll answer DMs.
• Enough about me. Here are some cool things other folks are doing on the web:
- I’ve never met Ronny Pascale but he’s a prolific creator that I always see posting opportunities for people in the “New York Improv/Sketch Resource Group.” This week, he had a dating show and Anna joined in the fun playing a variation on her “Importance of Being Earnest” character. The show was a zippy 20-minute watch and if you want to get involved, hit up Ronny. He’s doing a ton of cool shows like this that showcase performer types.
- I’ve been intimidated about getting in the TikTok game for a long time. Most of us are. Tori Piskin wisely picked up on this millennial fear of Zoomer culture and put together a comprehensive hour long tutorial Zoom session where she taught comics the ins and outs of what and what not to do when starting on this new video platform. It was honestly really fun and she made it all seem easy. If you’re interested, A.) follow her on TikTok and B.) hit her up and she’ll share her tutorial for a small fee. It’s worth it.
- Wanted to shout out one of my favorite filmmakers Sean Hennessy who I studied with at Arizona State. In the film school program, we build up for five semesters toward a capstone project whether it be a thesis film, feature-length screenplay or crewing out on a number of films as a cinematographer. Sean directed a short and ended up making one of the boldest, funniest, smartest odes to corporate evil I’ve ever seen. I was on set as the Second Assistant Director and reliving the movie watching it today not only brings me back but also shows me how ahead of his time Sean was when he made it back in 2010. This short is 15 minutes, titled “A Tragic Tale of Flies and Men” and the link is in the comments.
- I don’t know Eitan Levine well (I am a fan of his though) but we are Facebook friends and he did write a moving tribute/op-ed full of warmth, pathos and humor for his bubby who recently passed away in the New York Times. She sounded like an incredible woman and this is a truly great read that needs as many eyeballs on it as it can get. You can read it by grabbing the link in the comments.
• Now, a quick rundown of all the stuff I streamed, watched and read these past seven days.
“3 Idiots” (2009): The best part of this movie is when someone says, “What are you watching?” and you say, “3 Idiots,” it sounds like you’re roasting three friends of yours. As for this flick, it’s a 2-hour 50-minute Bollywood epic complete with musical numbers, an unbelievable amount of corny, heartfelt moments (single tears roll down many cheeks) and a professor who forces multiple students to commit suicide. With all that being said, there are some fun gags, impressive cinematography and a great 90-minute movie hiding in this 170-minute blockbuster. IT HAS ITS MOMENTS (Streaming on Netflix).
“Voyeur” (2017): Based on my all-time favorite piece of journalism “The Voyeur’s Motel” by Gay Talese, this slight documentary is all about the journalist’s fraught relationship with his subject (Gerald Foos), how true this story is and who these people are outside this story. It’s a fun companion piece to the article but without reading Talese’s story (which I’ve linked in the comments) it’s a trivial story at best. Foos is a true weirdo though if you like documentaries about strange personalities. SKIP THE DOC BUT DO READ THE ARTICLE (Streaming on Netflix).
“Rango” (2011): Gore Verbinski is one of the most underrated directors working today. This movie proves it once again. A stellar voice cast (Depp, Stephen Root, Ned Beatty, Isla Fisher to name a few), tons of inside jokes for film nerds, brilliant compositions, great Western setpieces and lifelike animation make this feel like a worthy successor to the great “Shrek.” This is one that never got the love it deserved and IF YOU LIKE ANIMATED FILMS, THIS IS FOR YOU (Streaming on Amazon Prime).
“Mikey and Nicky” (1976): Clocking in at two hours, this one felt like a marathon. Allegedly, director Elaine May (half of Nichols and May) shot more than three times as much footage for this small scale gangster picture than “Casablanca.” It’s a meandering, intimate affair about two low level crooks played by the legendary Peter Falk and John Cassavettes that I’m pretty sure directly influenced Tarantino (this HAS to be the precursor to “Reservoir Dogs”). To be fair, the movie has occasional flashes of brilliance like a confrontation about who is the better friend of the two was genuinely fantastic plus a truly messed up ending but for the most part it drags its feet with slice of life material that feels too slight. IF YOU’RE AN ELAINE MAY COMPLETIST, GO FOR IT, BUT IF YOU’RE AN ELAINE MAY COMPLETIST, YOU’VE ALREADY SEEN THIS (Paid $4.00 on YouTube to see this one).
“Bio Dome” (1996): This movie has 4% on Rotten Tomatoes. Folks really seem to hate Pauly Shore AND Stephen Baldwin, the two leads. I went in with the lowest of low expectations when I turned this on at 8 AM on Saturday morning (I couldn’t sleep). Ended up loving the HECK out of this. Featuring a soundtrack full of 90s songs I completely forgot about (“Da Da Da” by Trio), a cameo from a young, unknown Tenacious D and a prescient story about quarantining (Shore and Baldwin sneak into a dome meant to study how natural resources react to ideal conditions and they become the “Chaos Theory” element), the movie delivered on all the fronts that I’d expect a studio comedy to. There are big laughs, a somewhat moving storyline and a solid lesson even. This one DESERVES A CULTURAL REVISIT (Streaming on Amazon Prime).
“The Chris Farley Show” (2008): I’ll be truly honest; I never got into Chris Farley’s comedy. It’s not that he’s not funny. Matt Foley is one of the greatest sketches ever hands down. Farley just struck me as a person without nuance and other than seeing his sketches on SNL, “Tommy Boy” and “Black Sheep” forever ago, I never really explored. Decided to change that over the course of this break and read his oral history (excluding quotes from him for obvious reasons) and was pleasantly surprised to learn so much about the guy that I didn’t know. He went to mass every Sunday. Always made sure to prop up friends and didn’t accept praise. The most heartwarming story of all happened the day after he died around Christmastime. Won’t spoil it. Made me tear up while reading it. It’s a breezy AND heavy text that makes for A GREAT READ I COULDN’T PUT DOWN ($9 or so on Amazon for paperback).
Jon Bois’ six-part series on The Mariners (2020): If you’re a sports fan and you don’t know Jon Bois, you are in for a “free dessert on your birthday-level joy.” He’s basically one of the best YouTubers EVER with comprehensive, stat and story heavy videos about a number of topics like “How come there aren’t any Bobs anymore?” This might be his most impressive project yet. These six videos trace the cursed history of the only Major League team not to advance to the World Series EVER. Excellent background viewing, great rewatchability and full of stuff that will make you go, “Wow,” CHECK THIS OUT IF YOU ARE OR AREN’T A SPORTS FAN (Streaming on YouTube; threw the playlist of all six installments in the comments).
• This was a tragic week for comedy. We lost Fred Willard, Jerry Stiller (his roast was my favorite as a kid; someone called Ben Stiller’s show a “Shitcom” and that was my favorite joke for a good two years) and Lynn Shelton (director and Marc Maron’s partner). I have no stories about any of them other than I really enjoyed all of their work and they will all be missed. This is a dark time.
• Not a ton going on this week per usual. Tuesday night, Dragonfly is doing a reading of an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” which should be a fun watch (I’ve never seen an episode of the show) and Thursday night at 10 EST, I’ll be hanging with my pal Todd Montesi on his Instagram Live.
Also! If you’re interested, I’m helping run a comedy competition. We need a bunch more people so please feel free to sign up. The Google Form is in the comments.
Having a rough quarantine? Try listening to mashups. They instantly cheer me up :)
01.) POTLUCK THE FILM starring Anna Paone and me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1AyinS_wHk&lc=UgxWPKsPv1iwi2DVGjN4AaABAg&feature=em-comments
02.) CNBC article by Robert Exley and Michelle Fox Theobald:
03.) Anna in Ronny Pascale’s dating game show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEz9cUxLRZE&has_verified=1
04.) Sean Hennessy’s “A Tragic Tale of Flies and Men:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADZnTRxlGbo&t=52s&fbclid=IwAR3YoUzIDiOhP-py9WTmZ1B9raqC1WCoMentORKvXc07m-XAk2evdBr5oZ0
05.) Eitan Levine’s New York Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/opinion/coronavirus-jewish-funeral.html
06.) Voyeur https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/11/gay-talese-the-voyeurs-motel
06.) Jon Bois’ Mariners series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pkVu6Kw00M&list=PLUXSZMIiUfFQua1LlKNMg1IOqAn15RkUT
07.) Comedian Competition Google form:
