AUTOMATIC PILOT (old comedy sketch)

Here's an early script that was performed in the stage show "Children with Hands", directed by Oliver Butler at the wonderful UNDER St. Mark's.  Will Carlough played Pete and Paul Thureen played Felix.  Each actor did excellent work and it was delightful for me to see someone else play parts that I would've messed up.  (Spoiler: Paul did an amazing job at making the crying very real and laugh-out-loud funny; whereas I would've probably played it for laughs or made it too pathetic.)

“AUTOMATIC PILOT”

(PETE and FELIX sit side by side, holding the controls of a commercial airplane)

PETE: Confirm cabin pressure to altitude.

FELIX: Check.

PETE: Then we can kick back ‘til Fort Worth.

(PETE visibly relaxes and seems much more comfortable.  FELIX begins to sob, gently.)

THE FORTUNE TELLER sketch (old comedy sketch I wrote)

So I'm starting to post old comedy sketches.  It's an attempt to catalog early writings, as I've discovered that a lot of my early stuff isn't saved anywhere.  As I continue to post my old work, I'll present pieces as they were written.


Here's "THE FORTUNE TELLER"

(Stage is set with 2 chairs; one is occupied by MADAME KRISTA, an old gypsy woman. Next to her is a small sign that reads “PALM READINGS, $5”) 

(DAN walks through the curtain and sits down.  He hands the woman a five-dollar bill.) 

MADAME KRISTA: Yes, yes, let Madame Krista look into your future and see your fate.  Give me your hand…

(She turns his hand over to reveal thick black hair growing from his palm.)

MADAME KRISTA: Well…uhm…eh…it says you really like to whack-off. 

PAUSE. 

DAN: Does it say anything about my painting career?  Or where I’ll meet the love of my life?  Or if I’ll win the pie-eating contest?

MADAME KRISTA: No. Just a lot of whacking-off. 

DAN: Huh. 

(MADAME KRISTA squints.) 

MADAME KRISA: Also…you were born in a test-tube…conceived from the frozen seed of Adolph Hitler. 

DAN: No kiddin’ lady.  Why’da’ya think I pump the baloney so much? 

SFX: Wont-waaaant. 

The End.

KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT GENRE BUSTERS - recap and bonus material

Thanks everybody who came to last week's show, KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT GENRE BUSTERS.  The 92Y Tribeca hosted us in "the big room" and we got a wonderful audience on a cold, wet Wednesday night.


We had a delightful evening with some authors who bring the A-game to disrespected genres.

First up, Ben H. Winters talked about being recruited to write Quirk book's follow-up to someone else's mash-up novel PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES, explaining how he was chosen for the job and what it took to make SENSE & SENSIBILITY & SEA MONSTERS.  When faced with the task of writing a second mash-up novel, Ben realized it wouldn't work if he was revisiting authors who are already funny (say, Charles Dickens), so he chose a man with no sense of humor at all: Tolstoy.  And that led to the science-fiction, robot and UFO masterpiece ANDROID KARENENA  Ben came all the way in from Boston and he did not disappoint!  Follow him online here.

Who owns "They Live"? : a half-assed essay

Author Jonathan Lethem has a boner for the movie They Live (1988).  So much so that he's just written a book about it.  And this week he's hosting a screening of the film, followed by a conversation with John Hodgman. 

It's curious that over 20 years after its release, this B-movie movie has gotten the attention of academic-types.  They Live is an excellent combination of form and content: if you want to make a message-movie for blue-collar audiences (about how they're being systematically screwed) make a sci-fi action movie starring a professional wrestler.  But if you attend Lethem's screening at the  Greenwich Village IFC theater, do you expect the audience to be made up of "haves" or "have-nots"?

John Carpenter's They Live has something in common with George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978): both feature bit characters that reflect the bearded Lefty intellectuals (they're not wearing leather-elbow patches, but they might as well be.)  In both cases, these talky apparitions appear mostly in TV screens (as if they exist inside the television and not in the same world as the characters, the same way some would criticize academics who live inside the Ivory Tower.) Their ideological ramblings are fragmented throughout each film.  In They Live, a character listed as "bearded man" hacks into network television signals and gives a direct-address about how "They" have created a repressive society that's turning "us" into livestock  (watch a clip here, from 2:01 - 3:55)  Dawn of the Dead's nameless, bearded "TV Commentator" insists on the need for logical behavior, and then calls the studio audience "dummies!" (watch a clip here)

My video series, OLD PEOPLE NEWS: The Tech Report

Remember my video OLD PEOPLE NEWS ?  Comedy Central and Atom.com liked it so much, they wanted more.  Here are the 8 new episodes -- our news team is back and older than ever, with THE TECH REPORT. 

Old People News: The Tech Report Channel
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

see 7 more after the break....

The trouble with Superman II: The Richard Donner cut

This past week I finally saw SUPERMAN II: The Richard Donner Cut.   Donner directed the first Superman (1978) as well as The Goonies and Lethal Weapon.  During the making of Superman II he was famously fired and replaced by Richard Lester.

I won't list all the differences between the two films, but I will mention one thing that grabbed me. 

Okay, you remember the basic premise of Superman II is that Kal-El gives up his super-powers, so that he can be with Lois Lane.  

And shortly thereafter, Clark Kent and Lois Lane go to a truck stop where a mean sunuvabitch trucker whups Clark's butt.   

Later, Superman gets his powers back, saves the world, erases Lois' memory (keeping his identity a secret) and then he goes back and pounds the asshole trucker. 

In Richard Donner's cut, we get all that, but the ending is very different.  Instead of kissing Lois and erasing her memory of the past week's events, Superman flies into the sky and circles the Earth, making it turn in the opposite direction, causing time to move backwards.  Yes, the same trick he used in the first film -- only here, instead of going one hour back in time, he goes several days back in time, essentially un-doing the events of the movie.  The whole thing is very Donnie Darko. (And by now I would've expected someone to upload the sequence to YouTube complete with the "Mad World" song) It would've been funny if instead of Superman un-doing all the events, it was Richard Lester (ha ha.)  

So by the end of Richard Donner's cut, the three Kryptonian super-criminals never arrived on Earth, Lois  never learns that Clark Kent is Superman, and (presumably) the kid with the negligent parents plummets to his death in Niagra Falls. 

But here's the kicker:  Clark goes back to the truck stop and beats the hell out of the truck driver.  

Even though, by the film's logic, the truck driver never messed with Clark Kent.  Superman hurls that trucker down the countertop and smashes his head into a pinball machine.  

The truckers and wait-staff must have wondered what the hell promoted this Bernard Goetz-looking mo-fo to come in and assault a patron for NO GOOD REASON.  

As the website says, Superman is a jerk.

Leslie Nielsen (1926 - 2010)

I just heard that Leslie Nielsen died of pneumonia.

On a personal note: I was hired on a basic-cable show, the money was terrible but I'd get to write for Leslie Nielsen.  I wrote a script for his humor and delivery, but then they couldn't get him.  So instead they hired Chris Wilde.

On a broader note: my favorite Leslie Nielsen performance is in the rarely-seen teleplay THE VELVET ALLEY (1959).  Nielsen played Edward Kirkley, the alcoholic TV producer.  Watch as he downs multiple "special" bloody marys and delivers a great monologue (written by Rod Serling.)  I challenge you to find a more expressive strand of bobbing hair than the one in this clip:

Something Old, Something New

Old People News: The Tech Report
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

ABOVE: The latest video I made for Comedy Central/Atom.com, the first in a webseries called OLD PEOPLE NEWS: THE TECH REPORT  (Note: this is a follow-up to the video Old People News)


BELOW: One of the earliest films I made, just added to YouTube.  "Family Dinner Party" was part of the sketch show TV Head Goes Nutzoid (1999)

Kevin Geeks Out About Genre Busters

Kevin Geeks Out About.... 

GENRE BUSTERS!

Wednesday, December 1st @ 8:00pm

92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, NYC

BUY TICKETS HERE

What's Kevin Geeks Out? 

A live variety show where we dive deep into an obsession-worthy topic. 

But what's a GENRE BUSTER? 

Genre Busters are those brave artists who bring their A-game to a disrespected genre. 

The December 1st show brings together 5 authors doing amazing work in Comic Strips, Young Adult novels, Romance Books, Wrestling magazines and "mash-up" literature.  The multi-media variety show will include mini-lectures, music, readings, video clips, trivia prizes, audience Q&A and more. Here's what you can expect from the 90-minute show:  

"A MASH UP MASTERCLASS
Ben H. Winters (author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Android Karenina) defines and defends the hybrid genre known as the "mash-up novel," and explains why adding robots to Anna Karenina is more like adding smooth chocolate to creamy peanut butter than putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.   The reading will include prizes to those who can correctly identify which passages are his, and which from the original, un-mashed-up books. 

Calvin Does Commando

Diary of a Cool Dad: I taught my 2-year old to quote lines from the movie COMMANDO (1985)


Calvin does Commando
Uploaded by KevinMaher. - Discover videos of people, family and friends.

We love Halloween

some previous costumes: 

GENRE BUSTERS: part of the Brooklyn Book Festival

Join us for an exciting, literary event like no other....

An evening with GENRE BUSTERS: Writers who refuse to phone it in

Saturday, September 11 @ 8pm

The Studio of Adam Frank Incorporated

203 Columbia Street (between Sackett and DeGraw)  
Brooklyn, NY

F, G trains to Carroll Street (view map)

It's FREE!

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Blog: Shark Show recap and bonus material

(preface: KEVIN GEEKS OUT is a monthly video-variety show which showcased off-beat film and TV clips around a given topic.  The shows featured guest speakers, experts, performances, as well as themed-snacks, trivia and prizes.  This K.G.O. was devoted to the subject of SHARK CINEMA, it was hosted by Kevin Maher and Matthew Glasson, as "Kevin & Matt Geek Out About Sharks")

July's GEEK OUT was a massive success, we crammed dozens of clips into a 2-hour show for a packed house.  It was a great crowd and a fun night.  Thanks to everybody who took part in the evening.  For those of you who couldn't make it, here's what you missed....

MORE AFTER THE JUMP -- a lot more...

I'll Become the Sea: a Romance novel

My wife has written a wonderful novel. It's called I'LL BECOME THE SEA (you can buy it here.)

It's a Romance Novel.  Strike that -- it's being marketed as a Romance Novel.  And while it does have some traditional elements found in a Romance story, please understand, there's a lot going on in this book, including family violence, urban school decay, Jungian psychology and heavy metal.

I love it for the same reason I love David Goodis and Jim Thompson books: they used pulp crime-novels to write deeply personal stories with existential ideas.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who would like I'll Become the Sea, but they wouldn't necessarily read a Romance novel.  Too bad, it's a well-written, deeply personal story that uses the form in a smart way.

It's like my friend Geoff says, it doesn't matter if Alan Moore is a genius, some people just hate comics books. (He said it a lot better, like he's trying to convince someone to read Swamp Thing.)  Or it's like how my friend Brian laments the fact that he has friends who love good ensemble comedy performance but refuse to see Return of the Living Dead because they'd never watch a horror movie.  (Did I just compare my wife to Dan O'Bannon.  You bet I did!)

Me?  I love comic books, especially ones that play with the genre and introduce subversive ideas.  I love the way bands like Metallica and System of a Down use heavy metal to deal with themes about war, alcoholism and class struggle.  I love watching the movie "Q: THE WINGED SERPENT" and seeing Michael Moriarity deliver an Oscar-worthy method performance, in a cheap movie about a dragon terrorizing Manhattan.  I love the way Joss Whedon used Buffy the Vampire Slayer to get at the horror of high school and adolescence.  Or that Charlie Chaplin made movies like Modern Times and said there wasn't any commentary, it was just slapstick comedy.  And look at this 1959 interview where Rod Serling outright lies to Mike Wallace, claiming that his new show "the Twilight Zone" is not designed for social criticism, it's "strictly for entertainment."  Wallace agrees and says that Serling has given up on writing "anything important for television."

If you like this sort of stuff, then you should check out my wife's book.  Or read her blog.   Or follow her on Facebook.

* RECENTLY ADDED:  You can read the glowing review from Romantic Times.

Lastly, I love that the book has a kick-ass soundtrack.

I love this writer.

Book of the year: another truly geeky thing about me

I never talk about this, but I keep track of everything I read and at the end of each calendar year, I would nominate THE BOOK OF THE YEAR. An imaginary award given to whatever book had the most impract on me.

Here's the thing -- any book ever written could be nominated.  (But I had to read it that year.)

From there it's like any award, there's politics and in-fighting (did I mention I am the only one on the committee, but I will debate myself from time to time.) 

If I were to give an actual award, it would be a sticker made to look like the big foam hand with the extended finger to convey "this is #1"!   The same way books get an "Oprah's book club" sticker, I'd have a BOOK OF THE YEAR sticker with that hand. 

Now let's get to the actual list.  These are the best books I read between the years of 1996 - 2009. (Read the whole thing, or skip ahead to the end for a surprise.)   Lastly, please keep in mind this is not necessarily a list of recommended reading, it's just that the timing was right -- these books spoke to me, because they connected with my then-current situation and where my head was at.   I don't know that "The Best of Temp Slave" would mean as much to me today as it did 11 years ago. 

1996:  THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West 

The best required reading from my junior year of college.  I was totally swept up in this unflinching story of Hollywood in the 1930's.  West is a lean, mean writer and he gets at the loneliness of desperate people.  There's one scene that describes a sad sack sitting naked on the toilet, crying his eyes out waiting for the bathtub to fill-up.  It's a brutal story that doesn't pull any punches and I couldn't put it down.  The John Schlessinger movie is visionary, but I prefer the book's intimacy.  (Does that make sense?  Sorry, I rarely write about literature.)  

Friend, Good!

"'I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.'"  ~ The Monster, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein