ThisKevin

4/11/12

A IS FOR ANDRE

note: this poem was first shared at KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT WRASSLIN'

Be sure to check out the other pop culture primers (see below)

A is for ANDRE, he has a posse

B is for BOBBY brainy and bossy

C is for CM, straight-edge represent!

D’s DIBIASE, wrestling’s 1%

10 People Who Missed their calling in the WWE

Admit it, all these people could work in professional wrestling. They each have that special something.

A IS FOR AEON: #5 in a series of pop culture primers

A is for AEON, I’d tap that cartoon

B is for BETTY, with black and white poon

C’s for the CAPTAIN, patriotic and pensive

D is DICK TRACY, his sidekicks are offensive

The Top Pop Culture Experts in Pop Culture

Here's the third (and possibly final) entry in my series about being a POP CULTURE EXPERT.

I went all "meta" and compiled a list-piece about pop culture experts in popular culture. Ha ha.

Who did I leave out? (Besides "Chainsaw" from SUMMER SCHOOL?)

(note the article's title was changed to "the geekiest pop culture expert in pop culture", but to me that's a different list entirely which suggests it's based on how geeky someone is. That's not the list I wrote. Oh you editors....)

Read the list HERE.

Thanks to Nick Nadel for bringing the list to a "legit" media outlet.

3/13/12

Troublemaker at the Comedy Institute

Recently I was hired as a comedy consultant to help some brand creatives think outside the box.

Normally I despise hearing people talk seriously about comedy. But the money was good.

Turns out the only thing worse than witnessing a panel on comedy is being part of a panel on comedy. People made sweeping generalizations and self-important observations. It was a difficult 75 minutes.

I did two things to simultaneously take my role seriously and (kind of) subvert it.

First, I arrived dressed as Dr. Millard Rausch, the jerk who appears on the panel show in George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. (Fans will remember I wore this costume when I hosted Kevin Geeks Out About Dummy Deaths -- honestly, it works better with the beard.)

Second, I tried to answer vague questions with a painstaking amount of detail.

For example, the bizarro question packet wanted to know "What are the genres of comedy?"

I suppose they want simple answers like "parody" and "slapstick."

Instead I wrote up 125 different genres of comedy.

I figured it would be fun audience participation, they could shout out a number and I'd reveal the specific sub-genre I listed. And it pointed out how dumb the question is in the first place.

After the panel I never heard back from the agency -- dashing my hopes of a lucrative consulting position. But here's my official comedy research listing the 125 genres of comedy. (I could've listed more, but I think I made my obnoxious point, don't you?)

125 Comedy Genres

1. Christian ventriloquism

2. Greek plays by Aristophanes with lots of phalluses.

3. Pre-Civil War Minstrel Show

4. Internet Cat-based humor

5. Porn parodies of popular culture

6. Political cartoons with too many metaphors

7. Nostalgia-based coming-of-age storytelling

8. Post-PORKY’S teen sex comedies screened late at night on basic cable with all the dirty parts edited out

9. Humorous fortune cookie

The Flat Stan Lee Project

1. Print or download this illustration (by the talented Karen Sneider)

2. Cut-out your paper doll of Flat Stan Lee.

3. Bring him on an adventure, take lots of photos.

4. Email those photos to Kevin@LoveKevin.com

5. See you photos at http://flatstanlee.tumblr.com/

You can also color in this black-and-white version.

3/11/12

Kevin Geeks Out About WRASSLIN'

GET TICKETS

A pile-driver of world-class entertainment, it's KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT WRASSLIN'

Friday March 30 @ 8pm
92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, NYC
just $10
click here for tickets

The two-hour variety show features a no-holds-barred battle royal of film clips, dramatic readings, guest talks, true stories, trivia prizes and never-before-told secrets from the squared circle, with footage you won't find on YouTube or Netflix.

With special guests:

Author-musician MIKE EDISON recounts the bloody Loser-Leaves-Town match where he defeated his boss to become editor-in-chief of newsstand staple Wrestling's Main Event, his feud with Hulk Hogan and his brief stint writing wrestling-themed pornography.

Quizmaster NOAH TARNOW remembers that long-departed staple of televised wrestling: the squash match.

Former WWE editor BRIAN SOLOMON presents "What I Learned Working for the WWE", reflecting on his seven years reporting to Vince McMahon.

Pop Culture enthusiast BRANDON ROHWER salutes the bad guys we love to hate, in his Celebration of the Heels.

Artist-Baker SARA REISS serves up wrasslin'-themed cupcakes (where the secret ingredient is a perfectly-snapped Slim Jim)

And host KEVIN MAHER shares the never-before-told stories detailing his two years as Garbagio, the masked-wrestler on a kids' TV show.

all this plus and much, much more.

GET TICKETS NOW

note: This event is part of the 92Y Tribeca's series BEAT DOWN: WRESTLING IN THE MOVIES

2/9/12

The Blog's the thing: Geoff Geeks out about Hamlet

Geoff Klock is my kind of nerd: he's very intelligent and he's equally obsessive about comics, TeeVee, movies and literature. Rather, he appreciates comics, movies and TeeVee as literature.

As a college professor he's been teaching Hamlet for some time -- so he set out to find allusions to the melancholy Dane in popular culture. (I hepped him to half-a-dozen oddball examples from Bugs Bunny, Head of the Class, Student Bodies, Theater of Blood, Laverne & Shirley and more.) If you have any examples Geoff missed, I encourage you to contact him at his website.

Now watch his video below, it's a labor of love:

The Blockheads - who knew?

1/31/12

Don't trust the MTA

1/25/12

Pop Culture Blogger of the Year (my acceptance speech)

I recently wrote a piece about being a Pop Culture Expert.

If I win the “Pop Culture Blogger of the Year” Award (and if such an award exists), I already have my acceptance speech written:

Thank you. This award isn’t just for me, but for all the dedicated men, women and men-children who keep your pop culture blogs fresh.

I share this award with anyone who’s had to excuse themselves from a dinner-date to step into the bathroom and promote a link that just went live.

To anyone who’s used a celebrity’s death to promote something written 8 months ago.

To people who’ve been forced to “review” a movie that hasn’t come out yet, or recap a reality show they didn’t see.

This award is dedicated to anyone who’s worked for a blog whose title includes some combination of the words: Buzz, Guy, Pop, Geek, Celeb, Burger, Crazy, Hollywood, X, Cuts, Film, or the suffix “--licious."

To the people who think they’re the first to make a video go viral.

To everyone who spends more time tracking down their overdue paychecks than they do researching an article.

To the writers whose editors tell them “300 words is too long.”

I want to thanks anybody who met a deadline while seated next to an emotional train-wreck at Starbucks.

I share this award with people who ask their Facebook friends to contribute to a list piece, then 2 days later encourage those same friends to read the finished article.

To anyone who’s used a pseudonym to go into the comments section and defend your work against the ugly, hateful, small-minded gorillas who visit your website.

Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to remind every website I’ve ever worked for: you still owe me outstanding payments.

Kevin Maher is a writer-producer with impressive resume credits. (But that's because his resume doesn't include gigs like The Daily Dirt, Celebraddiction, The Horror Hacker, Hollywood Update, Star Vs Star, and Bravo's "Great Things About the Holidays.")

Visit his website for the good credits, sample writing and videos.

Related posts: Secrets of a Pop Culture Expert

1/24/12

SECRETS OF A POP CULTURE EXPERT

Dear every teacher I ever had:

Sorry I didn’t do the reading.

There was a good show on that night.

Oddly my obsessive years of teevee consumption led to many jobs as a “pop culture expert."

In another civilization that title would be a euphemism for “unemployable” – but we live in a society where I can blog about ninja movie villains from the 1980’s and get paid more than a public school teacher.

Just this week I was given real U.S. currency to watch the movie KRULL and write trivia about it.

I don’t know if I’m a success story, a cautionary tale, or a sad commentary on our nation’s values.

You be the judge.

The tough part of my work is that I’m 37 and it might be too late to learn a practical skill.

Of course I don’t really believe that.

But I know myself well enough that if I were to make a radical life change and start at a non-profit, I’d eventually say, “Fuck it, this is hard work compared to ranking TV’s top mustaches.”

(Seriously, this trope ALWAYS comes up at jobs. Like the way TIME Magazine can always do another cover story on cholesterol, bloggers return to the well of “Pop Culture Mustaches." No one actually believes they’re the first to do the story. Editors I’ve worked for encourage writers to steal good ideas from other places. Because the bosses know that the mouth-breathers who read their blogs have no long-term memory or sense of history. If you don't believe me, then how do you explain the countless slideshows of "bad tattoos"?)

So I’m committed to writing for inevitably short-lived websites and second-rate cable channels owned by corporate entities that hope to gain some street-cred by featuring writings on trashy movies, vintage television and nostalgic trivia.

This field has less of a “corporate ladder” and more of a merry-go-round populated by lonley guys who are one Entertainment Weekly subscription away from Aspergers.

In a way, working a pop culture gig is like a game of chicken. Each writer is waiting for the others to “get a real job” so that more work opens up for the rest of us.

Unless we all get replaced by unpaid interns.

In my field this inevitability is like global warming melting the ice caps: We know it’s going to happen, but we try not to think about it and hope it occurs after we’re dead.

I resent that my tightwad bosses would replace me with some recent college grad who was born the same year I saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III in the theater.

I came into my nerd-dom before the internet turned history into low-hanging fruit. Today anyone can learn the complete chronology of the Planet of the Apes saga in a few minutes. But I studied it one Saturday Afternoon at a time.

And I dislike that any nimrod can glean those facts (rarely fact-checked) and become an instant expert.

It really cheapens the work I do.

Visit his website for the good credits, sample writing and videos.

1/17/12

Imaginary conversations about DUNE and THE DOORS

I just learned that in 1983 both Kyle McLachlan and Val Kilmer were up for the lead role of Paul Atredies in David Lynch's movie of DUNE.

And seven years later both Val Kilmer and Kyle McLachlan were both cast in the movie THE DOORS.

So that means at some point the following conversation took place on set.

OLIVER STONE: Val, this is your co-star Kyle McLachlan, he’s playing Ray Manzerick.

VAL: Hey Kyle, we met a few years ago when we were both up for that David Lynch movie. I never saw it, how was it?

KYLE: It was… okay. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but work’s work. Hey, nice wig!

* * *

And then making The Doors they had to shoot scenes where Jim Morrison takes the band out to the desert, where conversations like this must've taken place:

VAL: Hey Kyle. This is just like in DUNE, right.

The other guys were like “Oh, I forgot you were in DUNE." "That’s hilarious.” etc.

KYLE: It’s no big deal, really.

FRANK WHALEY: Do the line about how the sleeper must awaken.

KYLE: I’m trying to get in character, guys, Ray Manzerick would never say that, you know?

KEVIN DILLON: (teasing) Don’t be afraid, Kyle. Fear is the mind-killer.

(high fives Val Kilmer)

1/13/12

Save the Date: Kevin Geeks Out about WRASSLIN'

I'm thrilled to announce that on Wrestlemania weekend, I'll return to the 92Y Tribeca for a supreme Geek Out, the likes of which you've never seen.

KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT WRESTLING!

With a truly fantastic line-up of guest experts including:

Mike Edison (editor of Wrestling's Main Event, as well as Hustler and High Times)

Brandon Rohwer (film pimp and pop culture enthusiast)

Noah Tarnow (Quizmaster from The Big Quiz Thing and wrasslin' enthusiast)

and Brian Solomon (WWE, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, the Vault or Horror)

The two-hour variety show will feature a no-holds-barred battle royal including film clips, dramatic readings, guest lectures, true stories, trivia prizes and never-before-told secrets from the squared circle.

SAVE THE DATE: Friday March 30th @ 8pm

at the 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street in New York, NY

1/4/12

Early morning poetry on the C train

On this morning's commute there was a guy named Blue selling CDs and books of his poetry.

I was interested because I have this love-hate relationship with poetry.

I asked the author if he was going to read.

He said "No because he" (a nearby passenger) "might not like it."

So Blue handed me a copy of the book and said I could check it out.

They were very short pieces, 1 - 2 lines each, a mix of joking and though-provoking. Kind of like John Lennon's In His Own Write.

But there was one that didn't make sense to me.

Children should never

accept candy from stranglers

(Except on Halloween)

At first I didn't notice, the word was stranglers not strangers.

And then I had to wonder if it was a typo or artistic choice.

If it's a joke, the first joke trips over the second joke. (I know about this stuff. I'm a comedy writer.)

It was a Wednesday morning commuting mystery.

Before you read any further, come to your own conclusion.

Ready? Okay, continue....

I asked my fellow passengers what they thought. The guy sitting next to me explained it was a pun. The woman next to me believed it was a typo and said I should not tell him.

For the next minute we debated whether or not it was intentional, agreeing that "it works both ways."

Then the poet himself showed up, wanting to know what's up.

I said "We were just discussing the Halloween poem."

"Yeah, there's a typo in there."

"We were just saying it works both ways."

He said "Yeah, somebody told me I should add parentheses around the r."

Meaning it should say st(r)anglers or strangle(r)s ?

Before I could ask, I had to get off the train.

But it doesn't matter. What matters is that one guy got three strangers (not a typo) talking about poetry at 9 o'clock in the morning. And that's wonderful in so many ways. It makes me grateful to live in New York City where your share space and thoughts with people you'd never normally talk to.

For more of Blue's poetry, go to his website.

RELATED POST: THE FUTURE IS THE INTERNET - a true subway story