Here’s a table of contents for this lengthy post :

• Gearing Up
• The Daunting Task
• Something Different
• Gathering A Crowd
• The Show
• The Aftermath
• The Advertising
• The Future
• Buy My Album (the “shameless self-promotion whore” dichotomy)

Gearing Up

You’ll have to understand that, prior to this comedy special, my longest set was around 35 mins long. I’ve done three sets that broke the 30-minute mark, and none that have broken even 40 minutes. I set out to do 45 minutes for the album, and found out a week prior to recording it that I was alloted 70 minutes for my set. Naturally, I took that opportunity to write even more material. (golly, doesn’t that sound like a lot? maybe you should buy a copy to get the full effect!)

The Daunting Task

I wasn’t altogether worried about filling up 60+ minutes of time, so much as I wondered if I could fill up 60+ minutes that I would be proud to charge money for. That’s a big deal for me. I’ve done a lot of little projects for the purposes of entertaining the masses – several bands when I was younger, performance art, Aural Salvation (my hour-a-weeknight Internet TV show from 2005-2008), Mitcz The Expert (which I’m still doing on YouTube), 9 years of blog entries, every standup comedy performance — all of those things, I never personally charged for. Sure, people have paid to access them (either paying a door man, or paying for an internet connection) but I never asked for a dime. So, to break my 31-year-streak, I needed something special. That’s what I considered the challenge. (which reminds me – you should buy a copy!)

Something Different

With all that time to kill onstage, the freedom to go anywhere I wanted with it, the ability to stretch out ideas and bits to their bitter ends – that was exciting. I was finally free to tell lengthy stories, as I often do in my private life but almost never do onstage. This was a chance to do something different with my comedy. Moreover, I didn’t want wall-to-wall dick jokes. That would be “too easy”, I told myself.

My father and I talked a few months prior, and when I told him about the special and asked if he could make it out for the show – he said “is it just gonna be a bunch of cursing and sex stuff?”. Taken aback as I was, I realized… he was right. The way my set was written at the time was little more than a series of wordy dick jokes. Sure, I’ve made some socio-political commentary here and there, and I’ve done entire sets based on current events, but the gigs leading up to The Big One weren’t even rehearsed. I’d just go up onstage and rattle off the easy sex stuff, cause it always gets a laugh and I could tell those bits in my sleep.

I wanted something my dad might laugh at. And my sister. Something that ran the gamut of the weird shit I spend my lonely hours locked away in my apartment of solitude obsessing about. So, I basically picked out two or three “sex stuff” bits that I wanted to keep and wiped everything else. (doesn’t that sound neat? did you know you can buy a copy?)

Gathering A Crowd

Leading up to the performance, I must’ve bothered everyone I’ve ever known about this gig. I sent out MySpace invites, Facebook invites, email invites, Eventful announcements, Twitter updates, text messages, phonecalls… you name it. I had only a rough idea who would show up for the gig. Ultimately, fewer showed than I’d expected, but there were also a lot of surprises. I’d give “shout outs”, but I don’t want anyone to feel left out, nor do I want to fill this blog entry up with a long list of names. For those that showed – know that I’ll never forget it, and I thank you from the pit of my blackened little heart. While I’ve always felt like a cast-aside nerdy little pervert, that night made me feel better than I’ve ever felt. At the same time, and for reasons I don’t wish to reveal publicly, it also in many ways cemented a number of negative feelings I harbor about myself, my life, my career, my social status. (aww… how sappy – cheer me up and buy a copy!)

The Show

What’s there to say, really? I flubbed a couple of lines, forgot a few bits here and there, added entire rants in other places, got laughs at non-jokes that I was surprised by, and walked offstage thinking “holy shit. I did it”. For a guy with no agent, no manager, and who’s done maybe 60 shows in his life (a sad number, considering most comics do more than that in their first 6 months) – I’m proud of what I accomplished that night. (curious if I have the chops? buy a copy!)

The Aftermath

I woke up the morning after it happened feeling lonelier than I’ve felt in a very long time. Anyone close to me that I could actually see and hang out with was at the show the night before, so there was nothing new to tell them. Anyone I was close with that wasn’t at the show was out of town, and out of touch. Everyone else, I figured, was probably not the close friend I thought they were; they’d have been at the show if they were. I then shed some tears for my mother. She would’ve been so proud of her little freak. (bla bla bla buy a copy)

The Advertising

As I said earlier – I’ve never sold anything for myself before. I’ve had a shitload of projects in my life where I thought “ohman, if this takes off – I can sell (items)!”. Now, for the first time in my life, I have an actual product to sell. And, while I’ve worked in web-based advertising for most of my life, I’ve never really had to rely solely on my own traffic, my own world, my own ads, my own… everything. It’s a crazy world out there. Crazier still is that I have 1000s of people out there on the web who have expressed interest in the album, but no easy way to get ahold of them all. 6,000+ MySpace friends – how the fuck do I contact them? And would it be “spam”, enough to get my account deleted? I’ve tried putting alerts on Facebook to fans of my Rev. Mitcz page and my Mitcz The Expert page, but even actual friends of mine on there didn’t know the album was available for pre-order yet. The same goes for my hundreds of Twitter followers, my 100s of Eventful Demanders, my 100s of YouTube subscribers. I’m trying to find ways to let them all know about it – but it’s tough to actually connect and contact any of them without feeling like I might get an account deleted for “spamming”. So, basically, I’ve just been trying to think of all the myriad ways I can put the word out (ya know, like I’ve been doing all throughout this entry when I tell you to buy a copy!)

The Future

To be honest, I’ve been considering just throwing in the towel on comedy. Don’t get me wrong – I love it more than anything else in the world. But, really, I don’t know where to go from here. Building up a “local following” is near-impossible at the rate I perform. I can’t perform more often because after a bout of financial woes and deadbeat clients, I had to give up my car and I can’t exactly walk to the Improv. Not that I’d get booked there – cause I’d need to bring people out to the show, and I can’t keep asking my friends to cough up hard-earned money to hear me talk for 10 minutes at a time. Especially when I can just have them spend less money to buy a copy of me talking for an hour straight.

The future, basically, rests in how well the DVD/MP3 copies of my performance are received. If there’s a high demand – I’ll rise up to meet it. I consider it to be the Greatest Thing I Have Ever Done (emphasis on “I”, which might make it “not all that great” in the grand scheme of things I suppose) and I’m very proud of it. On the flipside, I don’t feel like relegating myself to performing once-a-month as I currently do and pretending It’s A Career. Standup Comedy deserves better from me than that, and I just can’t give it – not right now, anyway. After all, I have a number of not-ready-to-discuss-yet projects I’m doing this year (like my book for instance) as well as work that needs catching up on.

Buy My Album (the “shameless self-promotion whore” dichotomy)

I’ve never been one to push my projects onto people. I’ve always been a “here’s what I’m doing – I’ll tell you about it and then leave you alone. If you like it – cool. If you don’t, I will bother you no more” kind of person. I don’t fill my Twitter feed with endless links to my shit, I don’t spam friends’ comment fields and Facebook walls with announcements about what I’m doing, I don’t even send out invites to events I’m performing at unless I was specifically told by that person that they wanted to know (or, in the one-time case of my comedy special — if it’s a Major Fucking Event).

Now, I’ve long thought that was Taking The High Road. Being a genuine person, and not a shameless self-promotion whore. I don’t want to distance myself from people and be in marketing mode 24/7. I’ve known people like that in my life (especially here in Hollywood) and they make me fuckin’ sick. When I was doing Aural Salvation, there’s a number of people who would kiss my ass trying to get on the show and I’d brush them off because, to me, they were just walking billboards for their Product, and I wanted People on the show, not Products.

The other side of this battle is that you hear all the time about people who Made It Big On The Internet. Apparently, Justin Bieber got his start because some record exec happened across a YouTube video of his. Tila Tequila and Jeffree Star got “big on myspace” (by “friending” everyone on the site) and turned it into a career. The same goes for Hollywood Undead, Soulja Boy, Dane Cook. Hell, Jersey Shore is on the air partly because an agent at a very well-known agency that a close friend of mine works at saw my Douchebags PSA, read some of the 1000s of comments on it, and said “Wow! People HATE these guys! what a great idea for a reality show!” and went in search of people who were just as douchey.

I’ve done research on a lot of these “success stories”. Turns out, most of the time, these people are shameless self-promotion whores. What marketing shitheads call “engaging their audience” turns out to be “spamming the fuck out of anyone who shows even a passive interest”. Clearly, that works wonders. Fling enough shit, and something’s bound to stick.

To put it another way – even if you hate any of the aforementioned people, there’s still 6 billion people on this earth and if you appeal to even 5% of them – you’ve got a market cap of 300 Million People (conveniently, that’s also the population of these United States). Even the combined sum of every Beatles album ever sold is less than 300 million. That should put things in perspective.

The projects I’ve done get really positive responses from people, and I’m very proud of the reactions they elicit. It seems those who dig what I do really dig what I do. They just.. don’t have any friends. Or, they don’t tell their friends. But, more than anything, I don’t actively try to recruit people. That will be my downfall. Taking The High Road, it seems, means fuck-all.

So, uhh… here’s my being a shameless self-promotion whore : buy my album.

Related posts:

1. RE : Mitch Hedberg
2. Get your tickets now
3. A Friendly Head-Punch Suggestion

What I love about stories of hypocrisy from hate-mongers, gay-bashers, cross-bearers and the general stench of their associated ilk is just how fucking obvious the whole thing is. Every time another of these scandals pops up, “thou dost protest too much” rings like a church bell through the nation. I hope it continues on. In droves. Just an overwhelming outing of every hair-brained shitcock who stands at the ready of a podium, shouting hateful jargon and belittling innocent people for their lifestyles. That’s what I want.

If this trend continues, it goes towards the most glorious of paths : simply being hateful will come to mean you secretly love it in your private life. Maybe the fight against intolerance has been building up to this all along. Instead of extolling the humanizing virtues of a repressed class, you can instead point to all the people who have stood up to proclaim an ignorant and hateful diatribe against them. After all, if you identify yourself with a person whose beliefs underline your own – only to find out that said person was lying their fucking ass off to hide their “shameful” love and belied the agenda they pushed – won’t you question your own beliefs as well?

Even on a lesser scale, maybe the paranoia that the public will undoubtedly link you with that which you’re rallying against will be such an embarrassment that you dare not say it aloud.

And that’s a beautiful fucking thing.

The Double-Edged Sword of Gay As A Choice

I’ve said this before, though maybe only onstage. If you’re arguing that one’s sexuality is a choice, and a conscious, binary decision of “gay or not gay”, then you have to face the repercussions of exactly what that means. You are saying, in essence, that the only thing differentiating one person from another is a simple flip of a switch. Taking it further – that means you, yourself, sat down in the dark recesses of your mind and thought – if only for a few fleeting moments – about hardcore gay sex that involved you. For just that fleeting moment, you were gay. We’ve all, in essence, been gay at some point in our lives.

I’m fine with that, personally. Cause I’ve got nothin’ to hide. If I firmly believed sexually were a simple matter of binary, conscious choices, I’d just as easily flick the “gay” switch and start swallowing dicks like bratwurst during Oktoberfest.

But, I’m just.. not. This isn’t to give me some inflated sense of pride in how gosh-darned manly I am. Far from it. I have a lot of feminine tendencies and you may have noticed I’m not exactly “ripped”. Whatever part of my brain regulates my arousal is responsible for a general “nahhh… just not into it” feeling towards dicks, body hair, and masculine partners. I’d love to tap into that raw feed and ask it “so, what else will I find out I’m exceedingly turned on by in 10 years?”.

Maybe….

Maybe it’s simpler, though. Maybe these evangelicals have it right. Maybe our sexuality is a series of conscious, binary choices. Maybe, it’ll turn out, hot sweaty man-on-man love is just where it’s at and once you’ve had some, it’s like heroin! Maybe these evangelicals have some secret tome handed down from the ancients that said “seriously, guys? the gay sex is SO fuckin’ sweet. If people get wind of that, we’re doomed. They’ll just wanna fuck each other endlessly instead of praying to zombie jesus and paying stipends to our church. Let them never find out” – and maybe every once in awhile, a preacher gets high up in the ranks and says “really? that sounds ridiculous” and gives it a shot.

And, maybe, he finds out the ancients were right. Assfucking a dude is transcendental.

(and we just can’t have that, can we?)

Related posts:

1. It Doesn’t Fucking Matter
2. Maybe Love Is A Comfort Lie
3. Do People Change?

Yesterday (March 6th, 2010 for those reading this later), I went with my friend Justin Dabuet to try out for Last Comic Standing (season 7) here in sunny Hollywood, CA. It was an insane, grueling 15+ hour affair. Friends of mine asked me “did you audition? how did it go?” and my answer has just been “wait for my blog post about it”. Sorry to make you read all this shit (I’m organizing it by topic and keeping it as brief as possible), but you can skip to the answer to that question written below.

(if you have ADD and need a quick visual tour, here’s a video…)

The Setup

Justin came over around 1:45am (saturday morning). His plan was to meet up with another comedian named Jordan around 3am. So, he hung out and played Wii while I finished up some work, shaved, showered, and got ready.

We headed out to Melrose & Kilkea (the corner where you’ll find the world-famous Hollywood Improv) and arrived at around 3am, with our soda, red bull and cigarettes. I’ve never stood in a line for more than maybe an hour, so the prospect of spending at least 7+ hours in a line was a bit daunting. Surprisingly, however, I was rarely bored.

Good Morning

As the sun rose around 5am, I could see the lay of the land better than before. The tents I’d seen and walked past earlier in the day looked even more abundant than what I’d first seen. I wasn’t yet tired, but it was a strange experience to be standing on a familiar Melrose street at five in the morning with a line of comics (a lot of them which I’ve performed with), all hoping for the same thing : a chance at 2 minutes in front of a panel of judges that with one word can literally change your entire career.

Tents Removed

At around 9am, the camera crews for LCS came around and asked us to line up properly, take down the tents, and make a lot of noise for the cameras that would walk the line and gauge the excitement in the air. We complied, because we are (almost by definition) camera whores — I have no shame in admitting I’m definitely a camera whore. Occasionally, the crew would stop to focus on one of the comedians for a moment, have a little interview, and move on. While I was hoping they might randomly pick me, it appeared they picked people who went out of their way to bug the camera people. So, I wasn’t interviewed (that time around..)

Getting Closer

At around 10am, we were at least in the adjacent parking lot from The Improv. I needed to use the bathroom, but since the port-o-johns were out of order (hardly surprising with two johns, one of which was half-broken to begin with, for the 350+ people in line), they had me walk into the sideroom of The Improv. That’s where things got a little suspicious..

Freaks & …. more freaks

When I walked past the line of people who were prepped for actual time in front of actual judges, I noticed something : I’d seen exactly none of them in line up to that point. I’m not suggesting I looked at every single person who ever stood in line, but I saw 2 drag queens, a guy in a skin tight devil costume, a guy in a purple suit, another guy with balloons made into the shape of vegetables and (my personal fave) Alien Warrior Comedian. I’m actually a fan of AWC – I told him as much, and shook his hand, saying it was nice to finally meet the Gwar of Comics. He was surprised I knew who he was, but I told him I keep my ear to the ground for things like that. Honestly, his comedy is more than schtick so I dig what he’s doing. But the rest of the people mentioned? Fuckin’ hacks.

A Word on Shticks and Hacks

It’s pretty basic : audiences will put up with hack-comics for a time, cause it’s an easy laugh. But hack rarely lasts. Moreover, schtick crap like dressing up and putting on some cliché persona almost never works. But, hey, it’ll work for 30 seconds in a blurb on Last Comic Standing (or American Idol, for that matter) because viewers love to laugh at the dumb fuck. Do you really want to relegate your whole career to being that dumbfuck everyone laughed at and quickly forgot? Hey.. go for it. (again, none of this applies to AWC but he’s another topic for another time)

The Plot Thickens

One thing that sucked greatly was the weather. It rained several times throughout the day, and while I was able to shield myself with my hoodie, I ended up freezing cold and dripping wet. On top of being really tired, and hungry. By the time Justin and I left, we felt like we just went into battle.

Enter Craig Robinson

This year’s LCS host is Craig Robinson, who you might not think you know but I just about guarantee you do. Here’s a photo of him (with a half-asleep Mitcz, after 10 hours of waiting in line…)

He walked the line, cameras in-tow, building up the crowd and reading cue cards welcoming TV audiences to LCS season 7. He was a cool guy, I just felt bad for him having to brave not only an angry, cold, wet, tired and hungry amass of comics – but clearly being lied to (more on this in a moment) and being ordered around by the director.

One of the things that the interviewers throughout the day (and Craig Robinson) had said to comics they interviewed was “tell me something funny”, or “give me a good one-liner”. Having heard about this early on, I thought “I don’t do one-liners”, but I’ve written a few for sprinkling into sets even though I never get around to using them. I needed something I could remember on the spot that showed enough about my act to maybe get me a leg up on the competition.

When Craig walked up to me for an interview, I had been standing in line for about 12 hours. Here’s how our interview went ..

Craig : yo, man.. what’s your name?
Me : Mitcz
Craig : Mitcz, Nice to meet you. I’m Craig
Me : Well.. nice to meet you, Craig
Craig : So… you funny?
Me : I sure try to be
Craig : C’mon man.. you can’t try. You gotta KNOW it. Gotta know it in your head
(I point to my cranium, and smile, saying “that’s like some Yoda stuff” under my breath)
Craig : So, gimme somethin’ funny, man. Make it quick
Me : Beyonce says if you love it, you should put a ring on it. So… I pierced my dick.
(Craig looks a little disturbed, and says nothing. no laugh.. no reaction.. nothin’)
Me : ….. should I have said penis instead?
Craig : Nah, man. They’ll bleep it out. It’s cool. You take care, and good luck!

…I’m still not sure if that was considered a good interview. But, hey, I did what I could in my half-asleep state.

Mixed Signals

One of the producers told someone near me (I was fading in and out of sleep, so I can’t remember if it was part of the “crew” I was hanging out with all day or not) that “everyone in line will be seen by someone today. Either inside, or out here in the line, everyone will get a chance to make an impression on one of the scouts or the judges”. At around 3pm, I was a mere hundred feet from the entrance, and we hadn’t moved more than about 20 feet in the past 3 hours. The rain was drizzling in and out, but one of our crew (big shoutout to Robert B Forsyth) bought some pizzas, so I wasn’t as hungry.

Around 4pm, one of the film crew members came out and said “basically, there’s no chance any of you are going to get a chance to audition today. we’re understaffed and overloaded, and.. I’m sorry. Even the people who are in the courtyard..” (quick explanation : the courtyard was just beyond a gate that was maybe 10 feet in front of us) “….might not get a chance, either”. At that point, most of the line started to clear out and go home. Justin and I agreed – we’d come this far, and if everyone turned around and went home, we could probably get into the courtyard and give it a shot. What had we to lose?

So, we stayed. And we got into the courtyard.

The Angry Masses

There in the courtyard, under some hastily-constructed blue tents, amongst about 50 comics… was a surreal moment. There were comics jumping up and down, literally screaming at the top of their lungs for a chance to get in and audition. One guy just kept giving these loud, impassioned speeches about how “we’re all being treated like animals” and much of the crowd of comics cheered him on. I don’t think he was entirely out of line — to say the event was handled “very poorly” would be giving them too much credit — but I don’t see how yelling at any part of the crew that walked by would entice anyone in charge to think “hey! we should totally bring this guy in to our studio!”. So, I did no such yelling, or cheering him on. I’ll explain why at the end of this post.

The biggest point of contention for the line of comics is that they were holding pre-filtered, agent-booked auditions on the same day as this open call. That’s a bit fucked. So, while 300 comics stood in line, about 100 comics were ushered in by their agents before the doors were even opened. Combine the 2-minutes of stage time with however many minutes of pre and/or post interviews, and you’ll find that basic math tells you 9 hours is nowhere near enough time to get through 400+ comedians – all things being equal.

It’s a fair point to make, and I really don’t see why they didn’t just hold the auditions separately – or not having open casting calls in the first place (which, frankly, I would prefer).

My “Audition”

After 15+ hours of standing, sitting, getting 10 minute naps in fold-up chairs, bearing the cold, the rain, the fatigue, and finally being told “sorry, Mitcz.. none for you!”, that angry huddled mass of comics broke through (not physically, but verbally) and the producer decided to bring a camera out, set it on a tripod and give to each comic who wanted it the chance to do one minute of comedy, out there in the rain with no microphone and only a disgruntled production staff and a seething mass of angry comics as an audience.

They said “who’s willing to do that?” – and I just raised my hand and smiled. They said “you’re up!”

Whether or not being the first one (and showing genuine excitement about it) helps my chances, I have no idea. Hell, I don’t even know if they planned on giving those tapes to the judges. All I know is that I’d come that far, and the Mitcz doesn’t falter easily. So, I stood in front of the comics and did the cleanest version of “Women are the Devil” I could. And, frankly, I think I did it well, It was tight, words were chosen carefully, I didn’t stutter, and I didn’t pause for longer than needed. I even got quite a few laughs from both the staff and the angry masses. I call that one point for Team Mitcz.

So, there. That was my “kinda” audition.

Afterthoughts – a brief rant about entitlement and whining

You will see no greater, concentrated group of whiny fucks with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-worth than what you’ll find in the entertainment industry. I saw it all day long, too. A guy (who will forever remain unnamed lest he think he’s important cause my blog comes up when he’s ego-searching himself) even said this around 11am..

“I’ve been doing comedy for 11 years now. Still…. EVEN NOW… I get no respect. I’ve been in this line since 2:30 in the fuckin’ morning. I even had (actor’s name removed) call on my behalf. You know (actor name) ? Yeah, apparently that’s not good enough! You gotta get GOD HIMSELF to call. Fuckin’ assholes. I gotta stand in line in the fucking rain for 9 hours!”

Give me a fucking break. If you’ve been doing comedy for 11 years and you’re hoping your “big break” comes from auditioning for a reality show? Write some better fucking jokes.

This world isn’t free, and anything entertainment-related is gonna be a bitch to get into, and take a lot of fucking work. Sure, anyone who gets onto Last Comic Standing will increase their audience and their booking fees by orders of magnitude in short time – but…. really? Waiting in line for a day or two ain’t shit compared to YEARS AND YEARS of hard work. Every one of those comics knows this. Some of them I knew personally, and I know about the hard work they put into it all. Hell, my friend Justin Dabuet has only been doing comedy for a few months and the dude does more shows in a week than I’ll do this month. And, ya know what? He deserves the benefits of better gigs than I’m getting. Cause he’s putting in the hard work.

Sure, whoever was in charge of the LCS auditions was running that ship at minimal efficiency. They definitely could’ve handled it better. Hell, a one-armed chimp with a drinking problem may have handled it better. And, yes, it was a grueling experience, and my heart goes out to every comic that didn’t get a chance to audition. But, let’s think about this – when else in life do you have a chance to completely change your life by doing nothing more than standing in a line and then talking for 2 minutes? Literally anyone could stand in that line. ANYONE. Don’t give me this shit about “years of hard work to get those 2 minutes”.

It was an experience, I had a lot of fun in the line, I met a lot of great people, and I got a fleeting chance to make a dream happen. Fuck it. I call that an even score.

(and, yes, I have been nervously making sure my phone is charged and in good range of cell towers all day just in case……)

UPDATE! (March 9th, 2010)

I said earlier that I thought Craig Robinson was “lied to”, but never explained why I thought that. What I meant was, all day long he was interviewing people and I heard him ask on more than one occasion “what’s it like to know you’ll be getting a chance at $250,000 and to be on national TV doing comedy? Just beyond those doors is a chance to make your dream come true!”. That’s not a statement you make to someone who WON’T, in fact, have that chance. The people he asked that to were behind me, and this was about 30 mins before they told everyone beyond the gate to go home. So, I think he was being told we’d all get that chance. Or, more likely, that the staff really thought they’d get through everyone. Who knows.

Official Word From Last Comic Standing

The people running the LCS profile on Facebook have sent me a few messages, stating (very kindly, I’ll add) that they never guaranteed everyone would be seen. They wanted me to mention that to everyone who reads this. So, I have. And, I told them I didn’t hold anger towards them as I didn’t figure we’d even get a chance to begin with but that it was worth a shot.

What’s fascinating to me is that they actually read my blog :

We had a neat little convo back-and-forth and while they made it clear to me that the people in charge of the FB account had no part in the casting, I’m still flattered to have been given the extra attention. So, thanx Last Comic Standing Facebook Admins :)

Related posts:

1. Procrastination Is a Lazy Comic’s Pillow
2. Back on top.
3. Goodbye, 20s.

(if you’re offended by this : you’re hyper-sensitive, probably an idiot, and you’re reading the wrong blog)

Related posts:

1. Jogging Mitcz : Take Two
2. We Have Hijacked Your Baby
3. The Perfect Message to Online Daters

I was told to host the show, introduce the bands, and fill time between bands with comedy. Easy enough, and should be great fun. And it was fun. But, not so easy. Bands like to soundcheck their equipment, which makes telling jokes over a snare drum exceedingly difficult (unless you’re doing vaudeville with rimshots, I s’pose).

Starting off the gig, I had some loud heckler in the front asking me to “come closer, I have a secret for you!”. Psh. Like I’m falling for THAT one. Here’s me responding “just say it out loud, no one cares” :

Later on in the show, my friend Ron Underwood waltzed up on the stage. You might recognize him from his former band Opiate for the Masses. While I’ve known him for about 10 years now, I wouldn’t say we were “close” – mostly just casual acquaintances. This isn’t to say I have anything against him – far from it, he’s a great guy – just that we haven’t hung out that much.

He gave me carte blanche to “just do my thing”, but then he followed me up onstage. I don’t think he realizes I meant to do comedy and then introduce his band (Beezlewood) but my rule is : if you’re on my stage, you’re in my act. Like I said before, I’ve barely ever hung out w/Ron, but.. I like to get reactions so I thought I’d just start making shit up and see if he’d go with it.

Me : Ahh.. if I had a dollar for every time I’ve been naked in a hot tub with this guy
Ron : Haha! YES!
Me : Hey.. you remember that time we double-teamed the girl with the harelip?
Ron : Uhh…
Me : I know, I know… “WHICH ONE?” Oh, Ron. I lost count of how many times we’ve been inside the same woman at the same time
Ron : You know.. my mother’s here
Me : Your mother’s here?
Ron : Yeah. And my fiancé
Me : ……

So, I thought “Oh! I’ll just defuse the situation by making an even more off-color remark that embarrasses me”, and I pulled out the keepsake necklace I made (that contains my mother’s ashes) and said “Well.. don’t feel too bad… my mom’s here too!”

His reaction wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped for

Me : “Well, Ron, I guess it’s time for you to rock these motherfuckers’ faces off, eh?”
Ron : “Fuck yeah!”
(Mitcz exits stage left)

photo credits : MistrsEvilKitten

Related posts:

1. Mothers Rally Where Fathers Cannot
2. A Friendly Head-Punch Suggestion
3. RE : Mitch Hedberg

Mi Vida Ridiculo

This is an area where I plan to tell stories about the whacky shit that goes on in my life. Too long for twitter, but not always long enough for a full blog post (though some stories will end up blog-length). I have a series of weird thoughts that go through my head throughout the day, sometimes triggered by an event, sometimes not. I thought it would be cool to have a little holding pen for them. And now I do.

Mitcz : The Expert

Mitcz : The Expert episodes are now prominently displayed on the frontpage. This will make it not only easier for longtime viewers to keep up with, but will help newcomers actually find out it exists and watch all of them in one place.

Twitter Archives

I was amused to find Twitter Tools, which can automatically post a daily blog entry for my Twitter posts. I took them out of my feed, and out of search results on my blog, so they stand on their own as sort of a mini-blog.

Enhancements

Pretty much just a cleaning up of pages and code, and making everything a little easier to read and digest. If you have thoughts – spit ‘em out.

Related posts:

1. Mitcz.com Version 2.0
2. Ecto 2.3.6 Test Post
3. My Finest Bloggings of 2006

Personally, I want the Kindle to fail. Amazon’s taking SEVENTY FUCKING PERCENT of the price on e-books and magazines. That’s just insane and fucking wrong. Sure, they’re providing the platform – but since the entirety of the platform depends on the content you consume with it, they’re cannibalizing their entire market. Also, the average price for Kindle books is $10. For Apple’s iBooks store? $5. Bam! G’night, Amazon.

Why it’s a game changer

Right off the bat – forget e-book readers. They’re dead in the water now. Unless they all drop to under $100, they’re just not even worth it.

So, 16GB is WAY more than any current e-book reader has. Not that it matters, you can fit like 10,000 books on a $5 thumb drive. I was a little bummed about the 3G functionality tax, but $30/mo for UNLIMITED 3G, NO contract? That’s a “holy shit” price.

Here’s something you might not have considered, which only just occurred to me a few minutes ago – I have an iPhone, as do millions of others. The iPhone supports tethering. AT&T is supposed to enable tethering soon. What this means for an iPhone-and-iPad owner is : you can save that $130 3G tax AND the $30/month, and still get unlimited 3G service 24/7 just by using the iPhone’s 3G signal as your mobile WiFi hotspot. Fuck yes.

Suddenly, it all makes sense. Throw in that kick-ass keyboard stand, and it’s like having an iMac anywhere you go. Better even than a laptop in some cases : longer battery life, less distractions, thinner, lighter, smaller, higher viewing angle. As you may know, I’ve been writing a book, and while I prefer to chill on my couch or in bed and type out on my laptop – I’m using a 17″ MacBook Pro. I still haven’t found a comfortable way to sit there and write, without lighting my damned lap on fire and/or contorting my body in some manner to fit the damned thing on my lap but still giving me room to type.

The idea of being able to sit there with a slab of 1/2-inch-wide, 10-inch-diagonal touchscreen tech that’s practically weightless, doesn’t overheat, and lets me type on a full-size keyboard anywhere I’d want to sit? Dude – Amazing (or, ya know “magical“).

What’s Missing?

A camera. I can hardly believe Apple didn’t toss a camera up in that bitch. It would be trivial to add, would add something like $2 to the manufacturing cost, and would increase it’s utility by a wide margin. While you can pretty much bet the farm that the 2nd-gen iPad will most definitely include a front-facing camera, I wouldn’t be too surprised to find someone (maybe even Apple) make a dock-connected camera accessory soon. Personally, it doesn’t matter too much to me, cause I’ve already got a perfectly capable Macbook Pro with integrated webcam and video conferencing software, but it’d be damn cool to be able to do Mitcz : The Expert with a thin slab of tech.

All of that being said… I want one. It’s quite possibly the greatest thing Apple’s ever done.

UPDATE :

Looks like Apple’s already announced dongles for things like USB :

So, I give it about 1 month after launch before there’s a webcam solution.

Related posts:

1. New Mac Day
2. My “Sex Book” Sample Chapter
3. A Geek and His Money Are Soon Parted

Nonetheless, here’s a quick breakdown of Do’s and Don’ts.

Do Not…

• Use netspeak/slang. (words like “ur”, “u”, “luv”) or bad spelling (“wut”, “realy”, “cant”)
• Use physical compliments (“you’re sexy”, “beautiful”, “hey cutie”, etc)
• Mention using outside services to get to know them (email, AIM, yahoo, cellphone, etc)
• Mention god. Unsurprisingly (to me, at least), Jesus and God decrease reply rates even amongst other religious terms.

Do…

• Be humble, especially for men. Surprisingly “sorry”, “awkward” and “apologize” all had high success rates.
• Mention something in their ad. The phrase “you mention..” had the highest rate of any term
• Mention a common interest. It appears common taste in a specific band is your best bet.
• Compliment something non-physical. Phrases like “it’s cool that..”, “fascinating” and “awesome” did very well
• Use “how’s it going”, “what’s up”, or even “howdy” (my fave). “hi”, “hello” and “hey” achieved very low success rates.
• Mention atheism. Oddly enough, it got a success rate almost on-par with musical tastes. No other religion fares well, though.

The Perfect Message*

Putting all that data (hooray science and math!) into a human-readable form means that the following form letter should yield you the highest possible success rate for messaging another user on a dating site. The keywords/phrases from the OkTrends article in bold, insert your own variables between {brackets}

How’s it going? Cool profile. I noticed that you’re a fan of {band}, aren’t they awesome? Have you heard {obscure older album by that band, or one similar}? It’s amazing. Also, You mention {random topic}, so I’m curious what you think of {similar topic}. Sorry if these questions seem awkward, but I’m pretty sure you’d have some fascinating responses, being a fellow {atheist, vegetarian, metalhead, gamer} with good taste.

Hope you’re doing well, and maybe we’ll talk soon.

There ya go, kids. It’s like having an aggregating math robot do all your small-talk for you! Have fun with that and let me know if it works.

Theoretically, if the robots are to be believed, this hits all the right chords. I’d feel cheesy sending out this message, too, but it’s worth a shot

Related posts:

1. We Have Hijacked Your Baby
2. Wading through the personals pool
3. My Evening with Skinny Puppy

As I see it, the love for horror movies boils down to one or more of the following :

1. We love/relate to the hero(es)
2. We love/relate to the villain(s)
3. We just want a demented laugh
4. We just want a good scare
5. We like being fucked with

Breaking that down, I’ll explain each reason and give examples where it’s been done well.

We love/relate to the main character(s)

I originally wanted to say “protagonist(s)” instead of “hero(es)”, but the “heroes” are rarely protagonists in horror films (and, frankly, rarely heroic – but let’s just go with it). Many times we’re watching the villain(s) go on a rampage against a group of characters that are the focus of a story and they’re just running around defending themselves. They’re not on a mission, per se, they’re just trying to stay alive. That would make the killer the protagonist. Sorry to be so pedantic, I’m the son of a drama teacher and it would feel wrong to not explain this distinction.

A vast majority of horror movies are working on the premise that you’ll want to root for the good guy, thereby making the bad guy seem scarier. After all, if you relate to a character in any story, you feel like whatever happens to them is happening to you. And, if you feel like you’re being chased, you’re going to be scared.

What pisses me off are shit-house horror flicks that rely on me relating to and liking the main character, but not making them anyone I give a shit about. This is either due to a lack of a proper backstory, or just cause there’s not enough character development to make them human and likable. This is why, to me, 30 days of Night sucked ass. I didn’t give a shit about the main characters. I didn’t know who they were, and they weren’t interesting/likable enough for me to give a shit.

If you’re not going to make your main characters likable or multi-dimensional enough, at least make the villain likable and amusing. Again, 30 days of Night failed at that, as well. It’s not the only one : Hostel 2, most of the Saw movies, the entire Blade franchise, and Underworld suffered as well (sure, sure, Kate Beckinsale was pretty neat – but she answered to some douchebag vampire gothbag, which made me question why she was listening to him in the first place, thereby making her character weak and dramatically lame).

Where has this been used to good effect? Here’s some brief examples.

The Descent – A group of rough-and-tough chicks (many of them also attractive, which helps), including a woman who’s child and husband are killed in the first 2 minutes of the movie. We watched them all having a grand old time right away, seeing how they live when they’re at the apex of life, and then we immediately see the frailty of happiness as her daughter and husband are killed instantaneously in a car crash. When the whole crew gets together, you can’t really find one amongst them that you don’t like. You might not love them all, but you certainly don’t despise any of them. As a further stroke of writing genius, each of them have flaws that make them multi-dimensional and you’re not entirely on the side of any single one of them, but you certainly don’t wish them harm. There’s a shitload of layers to this film, but the basics are this : you like these girls, and you want them to survive. What happens to them scares the shit out of you because you empathize.

Hostel – You’ve got 3 guys here. The geeky, introverted nice guy Josh. The suave, well-toned Paxton (whom you might not like at first, but come to realize pretty quick is just a young dude having fun, and he’s a really good friend) and the goofy-but-harmless foreigner Oli. Like The Descent, you’re not entirely on the side of any of them, but you don’t wish them harm. I thought the first Hostel was an amazing film, because you fucking hate everyone they come into contact with but you genuinely relate to and like those main characters. Again, you empathize so you’re frightened by what happens to them.

Alien/Aliens – Ripley fucking rules. That’s all there is to it. You have no empathy for giant, acid-spewing aliens – you just know they can fuck shit up. But if you don’t love Sigourney Weaver’s character in these films, I posit that you either hate women or you have no taste. That it takes place in an alien world adds to the scare because you don’t know the rules of the landscape – so really anything is possible. We’ll ignore the remainder of the Alien franchise for now.

Halloween – Don’t pretend you don’t love Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. This was especially scary for women, because she’s a babysitter and that strikes at the heart of a lot of teenage girls. Even though I only did a little babysitting in my teens (and mostly during the day, at that), I was scared for JLC. The remainder of the Halloween series focused on Michael Meyers, but (as we’ll explore later in this article) he didn’t have any personality to latch onto so… frankly, who gives a shit about him?

The Host – You’ve gotta love that whole family, really. They’re just regular people and your heart goes out to the deadbeat dad who wants a better life for his kids, but just can’t pull it together. What makes this story special is seeing him find an opportunity to prove his worth as a father, and because he’s so likable and goofy – we want him to succeed.

We love/relate to the villain(s)

This is what fucks up a lot of non-horror fans. But, frankly, I doubt they’ll ever “get it”. Making a likable villain is tricky. You need to make him/her/it tough enough to survive, but also give them vulnerabilities, quirks and/or a personality that make them kind of goofy and likable. The only way to properly explain this one is by example.

Nightmare on Elm Street – It could be argued that there were likable characters in the first NoES, and frankly that’s the only one of the series that follows a more traditional villain-chases-hero plotline. But, something interesting happened with this series that made it one of the better (and, in my personal opinion, best) horror franchises based on a common villain : Freddy Krueger is enjoyable. He cracks one-liners, he’s got a pretty lengthy backstory, he’s a scary monster but also human, and… let’s be honest, he’s got a pretty neat weapon. It also helps that he has really creative killing methods — almost none of which actually involve his built-in weaponry. Seriously… the forced-suicide-as-a-puppet killing in NoES : Dream Warrior? Genius!

Hellraiser – Like NoES, the first one is more like a classic horror flick. But, once Hellraiser 2 kicked off it quickly became all about Pinhead and the Cenobites. After that, it got into some campy-ass territory, sure, but I still enjoyed Pinhead’s killings and one-liners. I genuinely enjoyed Hellraiser : Bloodline, for instance, because of its heavy focus on Pinhead and making his lines so damned quotable. To wit..

and…

How do you not LOVE that shit?

Wishmaster – Ignore every Wishmaster flick after this one. The first one was a stroke of genius. Not only the creative kills (which go into another category I’ll explain in a moment), but everyone I’ve watched this movie with laughs out loud when the security guard says “Well, you’ll have to go through me. Which is something I’d just LOVE to see….” (because, you see, saying “I’d love to see..” is the same as “I wish…” to a genie).

We Just Want A Demented Laugh

This gets into the territory that, if you were the critical and holier-than-thou type, you might point at a horror fan and say “you’re a fucking psychopath”. But, frankly, I don’t think I need to defend my schaudenfreude here. Entertainment – specifically, fictional entertainment – is about fantasy. It’s not a stretch to say that likely most horror fans grew up (as I did) as outcast geeks, dreaming of all sorts of fucked-up death sentences against their oppressors. So, watching the douchebag jock get disemboweled by a chainsaw is an amusing site. This particular category of horror film is rarely malicious, though. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and the entertainment is from the sheer absurdity, as well as “ohhhman… I love how fucked up that was”. That’s one of those great feelings you get laughing at something you shouldn’t – and it’s something I explore a lot in my stand-up comedy. When asked to defend this style of humor.. I’m fucked. I got nothin’. I just figure if you “get it”, then you wouldn’t ask. If you don’t… you never will.

The trick to pulling off this style correctly is in being goofy about it. You should avoid going for insanely-fucked-up if you have a malicious intent of any kind. For instance, I laugh when my black friends tell me what’s commonly referred to as “nigger jokes”, but I’d be pretty fucking offended hearing the same joke from someone in the KKK.

Now, let’s get to the examples..

Dead Alive – If you haven’t seen Peter Jackson’s earlier work (Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, Dead Alive) then you really should. They’re insanely fucked up. And wonderful. I’ve always heard Dead Alive held a number of records – gallons of blood spilled, number of people shown slaughtered, most kills for under a given budget – but I’m not sure how many are true. The point is that when you watch a scrawny New Zealander take out hundreds of crazed zombie-like monsters with a modified lawnmower, you know you’ve hit paydirt. This movie provides so many “ohhh that’s horrible!” (while laughing your ass off) moments, it should get some kind of award.

Ichi The Killer – This is probably one of the most fucked-up films I’ve seen (though, I also have a copy of the banned Norwegian film “Revenge” which shows a real, human cadaver’s eyeball being scalpeled) and it’s something of a legend among horror fans. Those that have seen it will immediately tell you their favorite scene, those that have only heard about it from others will light up when they see it in your DVD collection, and those that have no idea what this movie is… well, you want to be careful when showing it to them. And make sure you keep a bucket handy in case they need to hurl.

Gremlins 1 & 2 – I honestly consider these movies to be close, in spirit, to Dead Alive. Just silly fun and mindless destruction. Most wouldn’t even consider Gremlins a horror flick – more like a comedy. But, they’re ostensibly horror. I don’t personally consider Dead Alive to be horror, either, but there’s too much gore for most people to consider it comedy. To put it another way : if marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin – Gremlins is the gateway drug to considering gore-horror a form of comedy.

We Just Want a Good Scare

Horror movies are supposed to be scary – at least, in theory. As shown above, oftentimes anything gory that doesn’t fit into any other category gets lumped into horror. And, frankly, that’s fine. Check out the Fangoria convention one of these days and you’ll see just about anything gory or campy-but-death-related being heralded. It’s a good time. Still, it’s kind of rare that a horror film is actually scary, given the broad definition of the genre. If you’re in for a scare, check out these examples…

The Shining – While some could consider 2001 a horror film for technophobes, no one denies that Kubrick’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining was a horror film no matter which way you slice it. This is the first mention on the list because you don’t really relate to Jack’s introverted son Danny, you probably consider Shelley Duvall’s character Wendy Torrance to be a weak housewife character (cause, really, she doesn’t do anything except annoy Jack and wander around scared all the time), and Jack Torrance is by no means likable – he’s a drunk psychopath with severe anger management issues. All of that is fine, though. The villain here is unseen. It’s all mental. It’s cabin fever. Being snowblind. Paranoia. Ghosts. Dementia. All of the above. WIth no definitive villain or hero, you’re just watching a family descend into madness, lead by a frightening character who suffers those effects the greatest. Perhaps why it’s most frightening is that there’s no particularly good reason this couldn’t happen to any of us in the same situation.

Psycho – A classic, and for good reason. I won’t belabor the obvious and oft-repeated reasons why beyond this : it’s a story about a psychotic man who appears perfectly normal. That’s something that will forever scare the shit out of people, because it’s happened many times in real life (Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Waynce Gacy were all well-respected in their towns).

Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Tobe Hooper said he made this movie because reclusive, tight-knit families in the South scared the shit out of him. I think once TCM hit, many more people shared his fear. Again, you’re not relating to the “heroes” (main characters) of the film cause you know very little about them. And you sure don’t want to relate to or like the fucked-up family they encounter. So, the film is stuck either being a dumb gore-fest without merit or being frightening. Hooper didn’t put much gore in his version (watch it again and count the times you actually see blood), but there was plenty of creepy imagery and an overall unsettling vibe. A masterpiece, to be sure. Still scares the shit out of me and I was born in the outskirts of a small town in Texas!

House of 1000 Corpses – To me, this is Texas Chainsaw Massacre for today’s audience. To hell with the TCM remake – this is what needed to be done. All the things I said about TCM above also apply here (albeit a little subdued, simply cause I was quite a bit older when this came out).

1408 – I love John Cusack, so this might’ve slipped into the “love the main character” category, but they intentionally want you to dislike his character as a fluff-writing douchebag. I’m a sucker for a good ghost story and/or movie about someone losing their fucking marbles, so this isn’t entirely unlike The Shining. Not sure why it didn’t do as well in the theaters, as everyone I’ve shown this to (now that I have it on DVD) has fucking loved it.

We Like Being Fucked With

This doesn’t apply solely to horror films – there’s plenty of suspense/drama/thriller flicks that fit this category. But, something horror movies are able to accomplish outside of those genres that adds an interesting edge is that you’re forced to relate to and follow a character that is horrifying and disturbing. One movie I left out of the list below, because I’m not entirely sure it fits into the horror genre, is Hard Candy. In that film, Ellen Paige plays a young woman meeting a photographer at his home. At the beginning of the film, you get the impression that the photographer is kind of a creep. Then you get the impression that Ellen Paige’s character is a psychotic woman, taking advantage of a vulnerable man. But, they further fuck with you as the film goes on because you hate both characters but also relate to both characters. I still haven’t figured out who’s side I’m on in that film (and, having watched the DVD extras, the director feels the same way).

Anyway, here’s some fine examples

Silence of the Lambs – It’s hard not to love and relate to Clarice Starling. She’s the underdog, in a male-dominated field, constantly undermined because of her inexperience (and her gender) who’s out to do right and prove her worth. Meanwhile, she’s also the only one the FBI can rely on to extract information from their favorite man-on-the-inside serial killer Hannibal Lecter. As a viewer, you mostly only hear about what he’s done that’s so horrifying – all you really see for most of the film is how pleasant he is. Gentlemanly, polite, exceedingly intelligent… and, sure, a little rough around the edges, but it’s to be expected when he’s got all these people over the years trying to fuck with him. You, like Clarice, are charmed by him. Then, of course, we see the claws come out and we see him do some pretty unruly shit to people who don’t really deserve that wrath. So, it fucks with you. Are you really rooting for the law (and Clarice) in bringing him down? Or are you kind of hoping he’ll escape, because now you’re sort of on his side, despite the atrocities he continues to commit? It fucks with you, for sure. And they follow that up nicely with Hannibal (the following two films were prequels, and quite a load of shit at that).

American Psycho – This one fucks with you because it’s really hard to be on anyone’s side in this film. You certainly hate Patrick Bateman’s entire social circle and his girlfriend, and pretty much every single person he comes into contact with. They beat it into your head how vapid and shitty those people are. No one gives a fuck Bateman even exists, frankly, and you just wish they’d all get fucked. But… wait. We’re seeing this through the eyes of Bateman. And you don’t really like him, either. He’s also vapid, self-obsessed, paranoid, vain to an obsessive degree, and clearly psychotic. Is he also a killer? We never really find that out either. Part of me ended the film saying “well, if he just imagined it all – then he’s not so bad”, but… what if he imagined being told he didn’t kill anyone? Conversely, if he did only just imagine killing those people, does that really make him any more decent a person? Like I said, it fucks with you.

The Devil’s Rejects – You really want to hate the group of deranged killers that are the focus of this follow-up to House of 1000 Corpses, but Rob Zombie’s genius was in making you like them anyway. You’re not given much of a choice. They’re underdogs and outcasts. They’re kinda funny. They’re a tight-knit group that watches out for each other. They’re up against a scum-sucking lawman. Those are all traits that, given to any other character in any other film, would make you hoot and holler for them. But, here, you’re conflicted because these people are fucked up. And clearly need to be jailed. And beaten to death. That’s why the film works – you hate them and are being forced to root for them almost against your will. The final moments of this movie are just amazing. I hope one day I get to tell Rob Zombie how impressed I was with this flick. (and, full disclosure, I did already tell the whole cast how much I liked House of 1000 Corpses).

The Formula

So, all you budding horror directors out there, here’s the formula I’ve come up with..

If you want to make me root for the main character – give them a backstory, and make them likable.

If you fail at that (or it is not possible, given your cast and/or screenplay), then make the villain charismatic and humanizing in spite of their evil plans.

If neither of those apply, and you’re just going for gore – go all the fuck out and give me a reason to feel okay about watching that level of over-the-top gore, make it campy if you must (hell, Peter Jackson got handed the Lord of the Rings trilogy after a puppet-fuck movie and 2 indie gorefest orgies).

If you’re not looking to make an audience laugh, and you genuinely want to scare some people – make it realistic enough that I worry it might happen to me or someone I know.

If none of the above apply, or you just want to make a lasting impression, mix all of that shit into one film that gives everyone a “WTF?” feeling, but make it skirt the edge of all 4 points and you might work your way into cult status (and I’ll probably buy your DVD and blog about it).

Putting it all together

To me, the number one horror film of all time – the one that applies all five formulas into one amazing film is the original Dawn of the Dead. You’re rooting for the main characters because they’re comprised of a group of everyday people and amazing hero-types. None of them are 100% likable, but you can relate to each of them in some way. Even in the beginning, with no-name redneck characters hunting zombies for kicks, you feel a kinship of “wouldn’t that be kinda fun?”. The zombies are just goddamned funny, and they explain why you should relate to them (answer : because they’re just like you, they’re mindless consumers flocking to what comes natural) but they’re also scary as hell.

It’s at times gory in a funny/campy way, because of the various death sequences (choreographed by the brilliant Tom Savini – who learned all he needed to know about realistic gore from his time in the Vietnam War). It’s scary because, while you can outrun slow-moving zombies… where the fuck are you gonna go when the world is full of them? Finally, it fucks with you because all these elements come together with no actual crux, no actual plot, and no actual outcome. There’s no “happy ending”. It’s just a snapshot of an all-out zombie war and post-apocalyptic survival.

Funny side-story : I did an awards show with Ken Foree a few years back, and we went out for a smoke so I told him that I considered him one of the greatest horror movie heroes of all time and asked him what he thought of the Dawn of the Dead remake. As if he was a g’damn psychic, he laughed and said “Ahh man… if I say anything, that shit’s gonna end up all over the internet. ‘Ken Foree takes on the Dawn of the Dead remake….’ haha. Fuck that. But, seriously… those zombies move too damned fast. I think we did all we could do with the first one.. I don’t see the need for a remake, but… I didn’t hate it”.

Anyway, that’s how you make a fuckin’ horror movie. Just in case you were wondering.

Related posts:

1. Go See “Shortbus”
2. Oh, Me? I’ve been okay…
3. Get your tickets now

I’m not breaking any new ground by saying the music industry has seen some pretty rough times as of late, I know. I’m also not breaking any new ground by saying “today’s music-buying public doesn’t pay attention to the radio or MTV”. But, therein lies what I’m getting at. WHY don’t people pay attention to new music avenues? My argument : because there ISN’T one worth paying attention to in the first place.

Radio, Radio, Go Away

I stopped listening to the radio around 2002, when I had a car stereo installed with an MP3-CD player. MP3-CDs can hold about 100 songs, which was more than enough to hold me over from point A to point B. On road trips, I could pack 5-10 such CDs and be good for the whole trip. My Faith No More and Nirvana complete discography MP3 CDs alone pretty much did it, frankly.

In 2005, I got the 60GB iPod and the Alpine head unit w/the iPod controller. That changed my life, and ever since, I’ve only used iPods in my car. 60GB is roughly 10,000 songs. That’s almost a solid MONTH of non-stop music.

I know I’m not alone. I can’t even remember the last time I got into a friend’s car and heard a radio. Some of my friends listen to so-called “internet radio”, but it’s actually Pandora – which is personalized streaming music. No commercials, no whacky DJs, no stupid contests and commercials for the local Guitar Center, and no hearing the same Top 20 tracks everyday for 2 months solid. If you don’t like what Pandora’s picked – hit a button and you skip it. Hit a different button and you’ll never hear that track again.

Radio existed on a basic premise that stayed along the same path for most of its existence. I’m 99% sure it’s still the same today. Each station has a particular demographic, and a certain style of music – pop, rock, metal, rap, oldies, etc. – and they stick to a playlist that will provide the largest amount of income from the labels that provide the rights to the music. That doesn’t work today for a few reasons.

1. Because WE want to choose the entertainment being provided
2. we want to choose WHEN we consume the entertainment
3. we want a VARIETY of entertainment to choose from

Growing up, we had about 12 channels on over-the-air TV and about 40 via Cable. Now, there’s over 500 channels – not even including pay-per-view and On-Demand services.

So, some loud-mouthed DJ “spinning the hits” 24/7 (without the ability to skip shit you don’t like and a very small selection of songs rotated through) is just bullshit. It’s dead, and worthless. Interestingly, talk radio has seen something like a 500% increase in their audience in just the last few years. Why? It’s constantly fucking different. Every single second.

Why MTV Ruled

Not to sound like one of those aging “in MY day……” fogeys but uhh… in MY day, MTV was the shit. If a band had even semi-regular airplay via MTV, they’d be superstars over night. I saw Marilyn Manson in 1995 at a small venue called Club Rio in Phoenix, a mere 3 months before Smells Like Children (and by extension, their video for Sweet Dreams) was released. The following tour, they were rocking full-sized arenas and have been ever since. When I saw Nirvana play at an arena in support of In Utero, they said “the last time we played Phoenix was at Club Rio.. which 20 of you were there?”. That’s right… in the early days of Nevermind’s release, Nirvana was touring 100-seat venues. A scant 2 years later, they were playing to a sold-out crowd at the America West Arena in Phoenix (that’s where they held the Phoenix Suns games).

What MTV had that radio never did, and why it would still work today, is variety. There was only one MTV. And, among the possible 24 hours of programming, you would catch a “top 40″ show, a hip-hop show, a rock show, an alt-rock show, a metal show, a blast-from-the-past show, and then music news and a rotating list of weird/alternative non-music programs (like my all-time faves : The State, Beavis and Butthead, and Liquid TV). You never really knew what you’d get from MTV, but you knew it was the pulse of America. It was definitively what was going on for the 12-20 year old demographic. If what they were doing wasn’t what you were into – you knew you could check back in about 20-30 mins and have a whole different experience.

To this very day, MTV is the only station I was ever able to watch for 6 hours straight and be entertained the entire time.

Fuck you, MTV

At some point in the 90s, and it was a gradual change but I can still remember when it happened, MTV decided to get in bed with Bunim-Murray productions to put the abomination of society that was The Real World onto your TV set. Looking back, MTV was that really fuckin’ hot chick that you just couldn’t believe was that cool to you, and you fucked her everyday and you LOVED IT. Then, one day, you find out she gave you herpes. And she’s like “ohh… I thought you knew? It’s no biggie…”. Yes it is, hot chick. Yes it is.

I mean that sincerely. MTV gave the world herpes when it gave us The Real World. We can all pretend it isn’t there, but The Real World gave birth to 90% of the TV programming out there, and the rise of a culture of self-obsessed jackasses who have no concept of embarrassment cause “OMG LOOK! I’M ON TV!”.

Since Cash Rules Everything Around Me, and apparently no one believes in having a fucking soul or doing something wonderful for the world, MTV said “Hey! This reality TV thing gets big numbers every time there’s a fight between two hairbrained shitheads!” and commissioned enough reality TV to take over most of their programming schedule. Goodbye The State, Goodbye Liquid TV, Goodbye Beavis and Butthead, Goodbye 120 Minutes, Goodbye Alternative Nation, Goodbye Headbanger’s Ball, Goodbye YO! MTV Raps, Goodbye fucking everything. They even killed off the ONLY remaining music video show – Total Request Live – even though… who the fuck is going to request videos they have no way of knowing even exist?

Bringing it all together

So, we’ve stopped giving a shit about the radio, MTV gives us nothing but vapid hams having scripted fights, and we’re left with…… what? Pretty much nothing. To discover new music, you must actively seek it out. For my part, I just keep my ears opened. Thankfully, I’ve got Shazam on my iPhone so if I happen into a club here in Hollywood that’s playing a particularly interesting track – I can find out WTF it is. Beyond that, unless I get a trusted review from a friend, I not only don’t know about new bands – but I’ve no easy way of finding out about new albums released from bands I already enjoy. What I do, normally, is check Amazon.com’s upcoming releases.

What confuses me, though, is how bands “make it big” these days. How did you people hear about Lady Gaga? MGMT? Kings of Leon? For me, I heard about Lady Gaga because friends of mine mentioned her from time to time. MGMT I found out about through an interview I read on Patton Oswalt talking about his “best albums of 2008″. Kings of Leon, I found out about because I was trying to watch Faith No More play a reunion show at a festival in the UK, and KoL was headlining, so I thought I’d check them out.

But, seriously, how does a band make waves in this new world? I honestly don’t know. Moreover, since there’s no easy way to find new music outside of a small sampling (via radio and MTV), many people just go ahead and download a whole album and then decide if they like it. Conveniently, if you listen to 12 songs from a band and end up liking 3 or 4 of them, you’ve got a much more favorable opinion of them as a whole than just really liking the only track you’ve heard of theirs.

This is why live acts are making more money than ever before — once you dig that band, you’re more likely to go see them live. In the past, you could safely sit on the sidelines and wait for that next single to drop in a few months, and maybe never make up your mind about the band. To this day, I still don’t own a single Alice in Chains album, and I still have no feelings about them one way or another. Meanwhile, I like MGMT more every time I listen to Oracular Spectacular, despite never having heard them on the radio or seen them on TV.

The future?

Who really knows what’ll come of the future. I know a lot of people are working on it, and I doubt I’ll have a say one way or another. I’ve got a million proposed solutions, and some of them I could prove would work, but I’m just some lowly comedian with a big mouth. We’ll see where it goes from here, but I hope MTV dies a painful death in short order. Shouldn’t it be illegal to call yourself Music Television when there’s no Music on your Television?

Assholes.

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1. Sorry, Kevin.
2. With Apologies to Your Mother & Fiance
3. Fun With Craigslist Part Two

If you don’t yet “get it” – allow me to elucidate.

My Enablers

First and foremost, if the only time you read or update Twitter is by going to twitter.com, you’ll probably never “get it”. It might sound silly, but it’s way too much work to sit there and refresh your feed manually. And, for posting, to have to head over to bit.ly, TwitPic, TwitVid, yFrog, etc to manually shorten a URL or upload a pic/video is a giant pain in the ass. That kind of activity will discourage your Twitter usage mighty quick.

Personally, I use a great (free if you don’t mind the occasional, but very classy, ad banner) program called Tweetie. It updates itself every 5 minutes or so, and lights up a small icon in your menubar (if you so choose) when new tweets come in. If you’ve also got Growl installed (which I do), you can also get fancy Growl notifications for any mentions, replies, or direct messages. I keep Tweetie running 24/7, even while I’m sleeping, and while I don’t read every single tweet that comes through – I can skim and see if I’ve missed anything neat. When posting, it’s a simple keyboard combo (command-option-s) to immediately shorten URLs, and it has in-app “record video” and “add image” capabilities. Again, this is all within the app, no need to venture around and use all these other sites.

Beyond that, I finally bought an iPhone about 2 months ago. I bought Tweetie for the iPhone to get Twitter on-the-go. Tweetie 2, which was just released, is even better. I’d say it’s the best Twitter app for iPhone – and some other folks agree. I can snap a photo or video and post it instantly – like a dude trying to sell a baby bunny on Hollywood Blvd or my name on a marquee . That’s fuckin’ amazing, damnit.

Combine those two things and I’ve got Twitter everywhere. But, you might be asking, why the fuck would you want Twitter everywhere?

My High

Easily the number 1 detractor for new users coming to Twitter is that question “what are you doing?”. Let me say this now – I almost never care what you’re doing. Moreover, almost no one even posts what they’re doing anymore. The question should be “what’s on your mind?”. Now that’s a question I can get behind. That’s an answer I want to hear. Conveniently, that’s the question most people are answering anyway.

I follow a lot of comedians – I like to know where they’re performing next. When their next CD/DVD/Special is coming out. Better yet, most of them try out one-liners and joke concepts via their tweets. I do it, too. It’s a great way to get instant feedback. I posted the following one-liner a few days ago and it got re-tweeted about 12 times in a matter of minutes :

Beyoncé says “if you like it, you should put a ring on it” – which is why I’ve had my dick pierced for 12yrs now

Whereas, I previously talked about my Prince Albert in my stand-up act by saying “I love my dick so much – I bought it jewelry”, I’m thinking this line about Beyoncé might work better. That’s good information to know.

I read live updates from the set of Iron Man via Jon Favreau’s Twitter. Found out about UCB appearances by Thomas Lennon, Weird Al, Chris Hardwick and Doug Benson. When Reno 9/11 was officially cancelled, I found out about it moments later because of Thomas Lennon’s Twitter update. Oh, and Danny Devito loves to post pics of his “troll feet” in interesting places.

Friends of mine will post restaurant and club recommendations, summarize an evening of debauchery, live-tweet a bad date, review movies & tv shows, post fascinating/funny links… you name it. Getting the occasional snapshot of your friends’ mental state is a fascinating thing.

The Twitter Hate

The funniest thing in the world to me about Twitter hate is that it generally comes from people who use “status updates” on MySpace and Facebook. Umm… you DO realize that’s the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING, right? The pleasant difference is – Twitter doesn’t have “friend requests”. You follow whomever you want, and if they want to be notified of new followers, they will be. If you “unfollow” someone, they’d have to manually check your profile and see that you weren’t following them anymore. There’s ZERO indication that you’ve stopped following their updates otherwise. This makes follow/unfollow into a nice, passive activity. And, something you can do or undo any time you want – in ONE CLICK. Sometimes, I’ll unfollow people for a few days because they’re live-tweeting something that doesn’t interest me and it’s taking over my Tweetie stream, and then I’ll follow them again a few days later when it’s died down. I go back and forth with Kevin Smith’s tweets because he gets a little out of control with the whole thing. Right now, I’m not following him.

Wrapping Up

Seriously, Twitter is amazing. It took me awhile to “get it”, but now… I just love the shit out of it. It’s not just entertaining, it’s also great for self-promotion, and learning new things, and seeing new sides of people I’d otherwise never know. It’s just an amazing bit of technology that seems simple and stupid but is a great example of letting a community define the utility.

Oh, and you can follow me here if you’d like.

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That being said, it’s also very hard for me to get up the courage to put all of my work onto the written page. This is a labor of love for me. I’ve spent many years actively working on the material and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t, at least in some way, sort of spent my whole life trying to unravel the mysteries I’m trying to uncover in the book. So, putting that sample chapter up in the first place felt like inviting the whole world over to give me an in-depth physical. “Go ahead.. put a finger in my ass, complete stranger!”.

Now comes a veritable “moment of truth”. This chapter I’m seeding out (again in both PDF and MP3 formats) is the most representative work of the book. It’s the first non-introduction chapter of the book. It sets the stage for everything that comes after it. It’s brutally fucking honest. Men and women, both, will likely feel a sting of discomfort at some point in the course of the 7 pages of this chapter. And, frankly, I have no idea how the world at large will handle it.

This chapter encompasses my years of research and my personal interpretation of that data in a way that ties it all together to make a point that I feel needs making. This chapter is about the term “slut” – what it means for you, what it means for me, and what it absolutely does NOT mean.

It’s over twice as long as that first sample chapter (7 pages instead of 3) and my semi-dramatic reading of it clocks in at 18 mins, instead of 6 mins. I think the average reader could plow through it in under 12 mins – and the only friend of mine so far who’s read it managed to read it twice in 20 mins. So… your mileage may vary.

With all of that out of the way, if you’re ready..

Download the 1st chapter of my upcoming book by clicking here

As per usual, any and all comments are welcome and you can comment anonymously by sending an email to : book@revmitcz.com

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so I’ve been dating my boyfriend since <date removed> that makes it <a lot of> years… Before that I was dating this guy who had some issues and moved out to <another state>. Now I’m having some strong feelings towards him again….should I move out to <another state> or not?

My (shortened version) reply was..

For the love of all things you hold dear – DO NOT do this because you think some fantasy you’ve cooked up in your head is gonna work out for you, or that this guy’s suddenly gonna drop everything and agree with your mindset. People almost never change. They just get better at hiding the shit everyone’s whined to them about changing. Spend a few months with someone you think has changed and there’s a 99.9% chance you’ll see the unchanged-but-lying-to-themselves person rear their ugly head. And then you’ll stop and think “ohhh shit. NOW I remember why we broke up!”

To that end, I posted to Twitter :

your ex didn’t “change after you broke up”, they just got better at hiding what you didn’t like

…and I was RT’d several times. I even got re-posted by friends on Facebook. Apparently, I struck a nerve of truth. That’s always good to know. But, I think I should expound a bit, because it’s a fascinating subject. So, here we go..

I’m Not On My High Horse

I truly, really, am NOT trying to be a hypocrite. And, I’m not just bashing everyone’s exes so we can all get on the “yeah, to HELL with my ex!” train together. Hi, we’re ALL someone’s ex. I’m an ex, too. And, yeah, I’m no fan of my most recent ex.. she can suck 100 cocks in hell for all I give a shit. But, I’m her ex, and the above advice (and subsequent Twitter post) apply even to her.

When I met her, she read through a number of old blog posts of mine, watched my show (Aural Salvation) and paid attention to how I was about life, women, sex and relationships. One blog post in particular, I talked about why I didn’t have a girlfriend. The long-and-short of it at the time was “shit… I don’t even know what I want. It’s unfair to bring someone along for the ride that’s not going anywhere”. Though I wanted to hang onto her when I met her, I didn’t want an actual relationship. So, we had an open relationship for about a year and a half and… fuckitlongstoryblablabla had a closed relationship for the next year and a half. Moving on.

I can even remember her watching an old episode of the show where Nad and I discussed marriage and kids. I thought it was a hilarious episode, but she told me “I can’t watch you talk like that”. What she was taking issue with is that, while I said I wasn’t entirely opposed to marriage, “I’m not sure if I’ll ever find anyone I’d want to put up with for that long”. That’s an honest statement – and, yes, I still feel that way.

She, in her ongoing “woe is me” bullshit mindset, ignored the “I’M NOT SURE” part and instead heard “I’ll never put up with anyone that long”.

Over the years we were together, I had to more and more hide these old statements I made. I couldn’t watch archives of the show around her. I couldn’t mention old blog posts. My standup comedy eventually became devoid of any “so, one time… in bed… THIS happened” jokes.

Somehow, I convinced myself that I HAD changed. That I wasn’t “that guy” anymore. That I no longer had any interest in casual sex, and maybe a married-and-one-day-family life is just what I needed. She and I talked about that at great length, even. So, when these ideas popped up in her head about Mitcz The Philanderer, she increasingly became able to dismiss them.

When we broke up – the first time – I jumped into bed with just about every girl who so much as smiled at me. Oops.

Fast forward to our final breakup, earlier this year, and I moved back here to Hollywood. Literally a few hundred feet from where I lived when she met me. And guess what? I’m right back to how I was. I don’t consider this a flaw – it’s who the fuck I am. And I’m done making apologies for what I love about life and you can go fuck yourself if you want to pass judgment towards me about it. I love my life, and I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.

So, Do People Change?

Honestly? The answer is effectively NO.

That’s effectively. To speak from a statistical significance – if 1 out of 23892 people were shitting flowers, it’d still be safe to say “fecal matter smells”. It doesn’t mean ALWAYS, or IN EVERY SITUATION EVER. But, goddamnit… MOST of the time. The test I’ve been using for years is this..

If you’ve run into an old friend, or even an old ex, from YEARS ago and you’re thinking “I wonder if they do still that one thing“. Guess what? Get ‘em good and drunk, give it about 2 hours and you can make a small fortune betting on them doing that one thing over and over again.

Generally speaking, after about 19 years old, people are who they’re going to be for life. Sure, they’ll get smarter about shit (hopefully) and they might knock off a few of their more immature activities – but if they’ve got some personality defect like :

- They think they’re 100% right about everything
- They talk too damned much, and never let anyone finish a sentence
- They have a temper that gets fired like a fuckin’ hair-trigger
- They’re one of those loud, angry drunks
- They love drama and/or creating drama and/or like to whine about shit a lot

….that shit’s probably never going to change. Seriously. And I know every 5 years, you’ll run into them and they’ll make a very impassioned speech about how they used to be, and how they’ve “changed so much”, but run that drunk test on ‘em and you’ll see it. They’ll even get that crazy look in their eyes, the one that immediately transports you back to 5 years prior. They don’t need to be drunk for this test, mind you, but it usually takes a few weeks or months for them to get comfortable enough around you again to let their lying-ass guard down and let the crazy flag fly. Alcohol just speeds up the process.

Full-disclosure : when I was younger, I definitely tried to be right about everything and argued with everyone. I tried to justify every stupid little thing I did and I never apologized or said “you’re right, I’m wrong”. And, I talked a lot. So I was basically just a loud-mouth asshole. These days, I still talk way too much – but I’ve actively worked to change cutting anyone off or not giving anyone “the floor”. Not saying I don’t still probably talk twice as much as anyone else in the room, but it’s an ongoing change where I’m now actively seeking opportunities to just shut the hell up and listen, even asking questions that will lead others to talk at great lengths.

What have I actually changed about myself? Trying to be right all the time. Shit, I’ve been embarrassingly wrong in my life, many many many many times. And while I used to try and defend it – not so much anymore. I even go so far as to start sentences with “I could be wrong, but…” or “Well, as far as I know…” and when I get into a discussion of opinions where one person thinks “we should do this” and I think “no, we should do this”, I immediately try and find a compromise instead of convince them that they should give up their fight and concede to me.

I am by no means a perfect person and would never claim to be. I can say I’m a better person than I was – but that’s my only goal. To better myself and make myself a bit more tolerable to be around. Thing is – change comes from within. And, unless you drop your ego long enough to realize “holy shit… I was SO fucking wrong about that” on your own time, and feel a sense of guilt and shame, all you’ll ever do is hide that shit from people long enough to lure them in. And that, my friend, makes you an asshole.

Conclusion

Chances are, that ex of yours hasn’t changed the very thing that made your relationship fail in the first place. Compounding this is the fact that almost no one is ever 100% honest when they breakup. We all try to be soft about it. And, yeah, we’ll mention faults, but ultimately it ends with “….and I just don’t think it’s actually going anywhere” or “…but I just don’t think it’s gonna work out”. If you were actually honest with the person, they’d fuckin’ kill themselves. No one wants to hear..

“Look, I’ve seen you practically everyday for years now. I’ve lived with you and seen every side of you there is to see. And, frankly, you’re kind of a piece of shit. You’re selfish. You’re messy. You’re hypocritical. You’re needy. You’re judgmental. You make me feel like a lesser person when I LOVE the person I am and now I resent you for turning me against literally my closest friend – ME! Looking at you now feels like I’m staring at an STD. I want to warn the whole world to stay away from your crazy ass, because you’re nothing but hurt, lies, and misery”.

Yes, I wish I’d given that speech, too. But, I had my own bullshit reasons for trying to keep shit civil (not the least of which is that we still lived together and I didn’t wanna get stiffed on rent, or come home to find my shit broken or missing). The smart money, however, says – 10 years from now – she’ll still be selfish, jealous, hypocritical, and vindictive without reason. And, I’ll probably still talk too much (but hopefully, that’ll be even more of my job than it is now).

By comparison – 10 years from now, I’ll still get really excited when I see titties. And I’ll still be thinking “golly.. I’d like to have to sex with that woman” when I pass a hot girl in the street.

So, that ex never found out the real 100% reason you left them, so they’ll never think to change it. And, you might even have forgotten cause it’s some deep-seated shit that would take MONTHS to even uncover. Like, maybe, they have a low self image so they innocently flirt with other people to boost their ego but silently punish you for the same thing by doing minor things they know you hate and pretending they didn’t notice, or they forgot.

Wrapping it all up – don’t dig through your trash and don’t go back to your ex. There’s a maybe 1% chance it’ll work out, and while you’re trying to patch that shit up, you’re ignoring literally a world full of other people you could be with instead.

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3. Dear Mom

This is not unlike Kinsey (and our methods are pretty similar), although I’m not as smart and my research isn’t meant to be without bias. The purpose of my book is to help women feel more comfortable with their sexuality without judgment, while simultaneously urging men to stop passing said judgment. I know, it’s a lofty goal – but it’s one worth exploring.

Anyway, I’ve written a detailed outline for myself and it’s gotten some great response from the people I’ve shown it to so far. So, I went and wrote a sample chapter. I’m offering that chapter to you today.

DISCLAIMER : This chapter is not necessarily the writing style of the rest of the book. This is intended to be mostly conversational. This is also an out-of-context chapter, as it’s the only one in the book that’s specifically targeted towards male readers. Regardless of your gender, you’ll get a rough idea of the tone and philosophy behind the book, and that’s why I’m releasing it into the wild.

Below, you’ll find a link to a .zip file that contains the chapter in both a PDF and an audio (MP3) version of the chapter. I wanted to make sure it would be consumed in a book-like way, and not a blog entry, so consume either/both at your leisure.

All commentary is welcome, and if you’d like to stay anonymous (or at least only reveal your identity to me, and not the masses), you can email : book@revmitcz.com

Download the sample chapter PDF and MP3 as a .zip file by clicking here.

Thank you, drive-thru.

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