Anthony King: 2008

I’m a little late to this party, but these pictures are amazing.

If Celebs Moved To Oklahoma

DVD/DVR #25 - Try to think of a way to kill someone.  Go ahead.  Got it?  I promise it happens in this movie.

I’m in Charleston, SC this week, performing improvisational comedic skitzz a the Piccolo Spoletto Festival. But yesterday, it was all about Pedro. We spent about an hour roaming the dilapidated concrete bunkers adorned with pseudo-racist imagery and random giant animal statues, browsing for fireworks and kitschy crap.

I bought juggling balls ($1.95 - I do not know how to juggle) and a squishy fake finger that looks exactly like a very unfortunate penis ($0.50 - picture forthcoming).

BOOK #13 - For comedy/improv nerds, there’s a lot of really cool history in this book.  The chapters about the early days of Harold and iO in Chicago are especially interesting. More please!

And I gotta say, this excerpt from the chapter about Del’s “death party” makes me feel very proud to be the Artistic Director of the UCB Theatre:

“His wheelchair was rolled to a telephone in one corner, where he spoke to the Upright Citizens Brigade (who were shooting in New York); the camera rolled as Del issued the final instructions to the UCB via telephone.

“Del told Matt Besser that they did it: they were spreading improvisation and the love of improvisation, creating Theater of the Heart. Del said he wanted everyone to know the tenets of improvisation, how to listen, and how to work with a group. He knew the world would be a better place when people cherished one another, treating others like poets, like geniuses.”

The 10th Annual Del Close Marathon is at UCBT NY August 8-10!

BOOK #12 - This book is mostly a depressing dive towards Farley’s death, but it’s a fascinating one. Sadly there is not a full chapter devoted to his turn as the bus driver in Billy Madison (in fact, it’s barely mentioned!). Had I written this book, that travesty would have been averted.

I think this movie might be my ultimate nightmare. Not the events I assume are depicted in the movie, but the actual viewing of the movie itself.

Growing up, my dad only really enjoyed watching James Bond films - because they were so ridiculous he never had to fully invest in the unbearable tension the modern action/suspense/horror auteur works so hard to instill in your psyche.

I used to think my dad’s unwillingness to invest was ridiculous, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to feel his pain.¹²³ And the seemingly illogical, violent fiasco hinted at in the trailer of The Strangers is representative of every dread-filled nightmare of suspense I simply can no longer bear watching with an over-sized Diet Coke and oily popcorn in my lap.

Though I must admit, I’d LOVE to hear a description of the film’s action from a disinterested audience member. Because while I no longer have very much interest in experiencing suspense, I love hearing about it secondhand.

¹sadly this is only one of the ways I am becoming more and more like my father

²(e.g. the coin-flip scene in No Country For Old Men almost killed me)

³I’ve been reading too much David Foster Wallace

MOVIE #6 - Ants good!  Prairie Dogs bad!

BOOK #11 - I love David Foster Wallace’s knack for mixing pretentious observations with self-effacing shame. It’s simultaneously alienating, annoying, hilarious, and heart-warming, without ever being hack or predictable.

It’s probably weird to say this, but when I read his books I feel like - were we to ever meet¹ - we’d be pretty good friends.

¹If I might engage my own self-effacing shame for a moment, I’d actually need to be much more intelligent than I am (and know much more about tennis), to give DFW any real reason, upon meeting me, to want to be my friend in return. Perhaps, it might be better to say, “When I read his books, I feel like I want to be his friend,” since the reading of his books does not, in fact, make clear what I’d have to offer him (i.e. DFW) in this imagined relationship.

DVD/DVR #24 - I watched this backward.

Pictures like this are the only things that make me think, “Maybe LA wouldn’t be so bad.”