What the hell is my problem?

Not sure why this is, but when things are going great, that's when I start to freak out. When I was broke and waiting tables or fetching lunches for studio executives I was usually calm and happy. Even when I felt like I was on a hamster wheel there was a serenity. Now I'm on a TV show working with amazing people, have my own apartment and a working car, and I'm often freaking out inside. Nothing to be alarmed about, just a sense that it will all soon be over and I'll have to sell my kidneys. Yes, both of them. Lately if I'm walking down a flight of stairs I'm literally surprised when I don't fall down them. I was sitting in my trailer on Friday (yes, I have a trailer) and I wondered to myself if there was a gas tank in it. And then if my trailer could at any moment explode.

I seriously had that thought.

A lot of times I'm on some "Yeah, but what if?"-type stuff. And I need to get over this BS. None of us can control randomness. That's why we call it randomness. Hey look! 2 Live Crew! Man, I remember watching those videos and just feeling sad. Those poor women. Oh, the misogyny! Hey, Chubb Rock! That's more like it. Listen, I don't want anybody reading this to think I'm depressed and I'm gonna kill myself or anything. I'm not. Everything is just overwhelming me to a degree. And every time I feel stressed I remind myself that some people can't afford to eat. That usually shuts the bullshit down.

Seriously, though, VH1's "100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs" is taking me on a memory ride like you wouldn't believe.

Yes, I'm rambling, but whatevers. I just went to take a shower and then realized I already had. Doing great! Really on top of the day today. I'm doing the Assscat! show at the UCB tonight as the guest monologist. Really, really great show. Basically I take suggestions from the audience, make up a monologue, then the house improvisors make up scenes based on it. I don't really do improv anymore, but I used to love it back in the day. Problem is, it can either be the greatest or worse thing you can ever see. When a team is really together and great, it's like watching a magic show that's real. When they're not, it's like watching a cow get slaughtered.

I should add that the UCB gang is in the former category.

In summation, I need to calm down and tell my brain to shut up when it's stupid. Also, "Tennessee" by Arrested Development just almost made me cry. And then laugh. I remember a girl I didn't like screaming about how the remix of their song "Everyday People" wasn't on the album she just bought. "Wow," I remember thinking, "you got outsmarted by a rap group."

Best,
Marvin Barnyard

Currently listening : Paralyzed By Witch Release date: 2008-03-18

9:08 PM - 10 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

I whip a motorcycle chain at your face.

I'll admit it, I'm a bummer. When I'm drinking I'll ask for a cigarette. Sucks, I know. Yes, I hate us too. But last night at a bar I was rudely denied (which I accept as fair) by a white guy with dreadlocks. This morning I realized I'm done. With smoking? No, with white guys with dreadlocks. Done. Done with going, "Ah, whatever floats your boat" when I see (and smell) them. Fuck you. YOU did that to your own head, not nature. Here's a quote from Ziggy Marley, black man and son of Bob:

"I don't understand white people with dreadlocks. Dreadlocks symbolize the struggle of the black man. And though the white man can understand many struggles, he will never understand the struggle of the black man."

So fuck you and give me a camel light, hippie shithead.

You know who else can go away? People in Mensa. Yes, the club for the super intelligent among us. Are you solving world problems? Are you called to a table in a secret fortress when humankind is threatened? No? What do you do? Spout trivia to each other over white wine? Really? Then what good are you and what is your club for other than to make the rest of us feel dumb? If you weren't on Jeopardy, kindly kiss my balls and shut your genius mouth afterwards.

Where is this anger coming from, you ask? From living on a rock hurtling through space mostly. Also not having wings growing from my back so I don't have to take the bus if my car breaks down.

My apartment building is getting fumigated soon. It's something I've never experienced. I have to wrap all my food goods in plastic and leave for two days. Thinking of going homeless for a while. Too bad I don't have my beard anymore. Maybe I'll go live in a Super 8 and at night yell, "Esmerelda!!!! Why?! Why did you kick me out! I swear I only fell on my secretary and my penis accidentally went in! I swear!!!" You know, just really, really specific screaming and crying jags. Until the manager knocks on the door saying, "Look, we're used to screaming and crying around here, but the details need to stop, buddy. Seriously, I can't get the mental image of you killing your wife's lover with a lawn mower out of my head now."

Now I have to go pick up two fake pistols and an unshootable sniper rifle for a music video I'm helping to make this week. I'm just like you. Thanks for reading.

Love,
The bear that only eats poachers

Currently listening : You & Me By The Walkmen Release date: 2008-08-19

8:32 PM - 7 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Driving with the heat on, screaming inside.

I was in Eagle Rock on Thursday for a sandwich. Heading down the street, I noticed a wisp of what looked like smoke coming from the hood of my car. Looking at the heat gauge, I noticed it was all the way the hell past red. Whoops! I pulled over, got my sandwich, ate it, then started my car up again. After three blocks, it shot up again. Even with the heat all the way up. Now, my mechanic just moved from Los Feliz (close to me) to Hollywood (not so close to me). With what was probably (and was) a blown radiator, the key is to not let your engine overheat. Because if it does, your engine block can crack. And if it does, you might as well set your car on fire or shoot it off a cliff "Harold and Maude"-style. I got almost there when it started lightly smoking, then called AAA for the remaining mile and a half.

But what a drive! It was already in the high 80s, and I had to have the heat blasting the whole way! Hooray! Sure, my window was down, but that really only served to let children and old women hear my cries of "This blows!" and "Come on! Really?! Fuck me running!" Also, the tow truck driver's casual creepiness was a plus. "I wish I was that lollipop," was one of my drivers awesome one-liners at the sight of a girl sucking on guess what. Yeah! Go dudes! I love being covered in sweat and hearing such observations. Where would you like your penis to be, sir? In a girl? I know where I'd like mine: Away from your forever with the rest of me!

But look, again, I live in a world of candy and gumdrops. That radiator was as old as my car (11 years!). It was bound to go. And my mechanic gave me a deal, as I was his first customer at the new location. I didn't have my car Friday night, but as a result I walked a crapload. Sucked at the time, but I can use the exercise (I'm built like a potato on stilts)(kind of).

In summation, the Cubs are breaking my heart, the weather has now cooled, I have a new radiator and hundreds of less dollars, and I still don't understand how two people with Bush's same advisors can call themselves mavericks.

Yours in bewilderment,
The Great White Dope

Currently listening : Ghost Notes By Everest Release date: 2008-05-06

8:48 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Hot as balls has followed me home.

Just spend five days in Portland, and it was hot as balls. Sad, as I like it to be overcast and/or rainy when I visit. You know, to offset the mind-numbing sunshine I live in here in Los Angeles everyday. The kind of sunshine that makes days and months run together in a season-less stretch of life until I literally think it's still 2006. Sure, we have rainy times here off and on, but they're rare. I'd hoped to get some sweet gray weather on return to LA, but no, here I am and it's still hot as balls. Hot as balls has followed me home. Both ways.

And yes, it is a meteorological expression. It references the level of temperature found inside the underpants of large male laborers wearing ball-hugging woolen undergarments on a hot day. Dates back to the 1800s. Look it up, person who thinks I'm obsessed with male genitalia.

But Portland's changed, man. Let me tell you. Actually, it's a good thing. I was at a nice brand new bar a mere block from the church I grew up going to. Back when I was a kid, it was a pretty messed-up area. I saw a homeless guy leave the mini-mart across the street with a bottle of Wild Irish Rose that he promptly killed immediately. I mean he opened his throat and emptied the whole bottle into his body as fast as you could dump it down a drain. Our first house was maybe a mile away, just off Alberta St. as well. One of my first Portland memories was overhearing that four of the five nearby bars had been busted for selling heroin over the counter. Now Alberta is swarming with gorgeous restaurants, bars, and art galleries. Kind of mind blowing.

Personally, I think I'd rather not buy my heroin in a bar. It just doesn't strike me as that kind of drug. As in a "party" type. Schlitz and H! Whoo! Whoo....oooh...ugh. [crashes through a table to the floor where he promptly sleeps]

Seriously, though, cut it out with the heat. It's October. I'm sleeping at night with a fan facing me like a singer in a bad 80s video. Should have ridiculous neon shapes on the wall and a silver-grey square-shaped phone on the dresser. When it rings, it flashes neon. Also I have on a neon headband. And my name is Knife Neon.

Come on fight the night with your light,
Knife Neon

Currently listening : First Offense By Corey Hart Release date: 1990-10-25

10:23 PM - 7 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Reel around the fountain

"Real Around the Fountain," by The Smiths is the best song to be playing in a comic book store, I think.

Last Tuesday I was driving west on Sunset to go record some voiceovers and short songs for Mad. See, we either record at a studio (where I did the "Burger Knight" commercial (if you saw it)), or at this guy's house. He lives just north of the Sunset Strip and has a little studio in his home. You basically stand in front of a mic and he coaches and records you.

Anyway, I realize I'm going to be a half an hour early, so I pull over, park, and walk into a comic book store. I used to collect comics when I was a kid. My friend Nick and I would ride our bikes over to "Future Dreams," a Portland comic book store now long gone. Man, I hated that ride. There wasn't much space for bikes on the road, and I remember thinking "What if I went off the side of this bridge? Just for the new X-Men?" We'd get there, ogle the rare and expensive ones on the wall, and buy maybe five each. Then we'd go back to his house and read 'em.

Portland had a small yet thriving goth scene back then. I was always into rap music, but I also really liked They Might be Giants too. So, basically, I was open to anything, musically. At some point in my adolescence I was in an animation class during the summer. At the end of the class run they screened all of our creations for everybody to see. Mine was a shitty claymation short about a monster who eats two skateboarders in the space of roughly fourteen seconds. Maybe less. Two (goth-ish) girls in the class made a piece involving spinning images that enlarged, shrank, and bounced around. All of it was set to The Smith's "Oscillate Wildly." The animation was so-so, but I loved the song. It was haunting and strange to me. Totally different than anything I was listening to at the time.

"Who's this playing?" I asked a guy next to me. "I think the Violent Femmes," he said. I immediately went out a bought a Violent Femmes tape. Which I hated. Not sure which one it was, but it wasn't the one with all the songs everybody likes. "Who's this whiny asshole?" I said as I fast forwarded in vain. I finally found out that the song was actually by The Smiths, and they become something of a musical background at the time. Their music, I should add, was (and is) perfect for rainy Portland.

So hearing Morrissey singing "Fifteen minutes with you..." while perusing the racks of comics by myself really took me back that day. I never really feel like an adult anyway, but in that moment I realized how much I haven't changed in a lot of ways.

8:27 PM - 3 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

First and second audiences.

Last night was a "shoot night," and we performed for two audiences. At the tail end of the first group (who had just sat there for roughly four hours), the sketch I was in got crickets. We got the second one in, put the same sketch on, and ta-dah! It got laughs. Just goes to show you, tired people don't laugh loudly. Or at all. It's really an amazing sketch, written by one of the newest writers on the staff. I really love it. It's kind of in the tradition of "Kids in the Hall," I think. No pop culture reference, no parody, just original, dark, and funny. So when it didn't hit big the first time around, Crista Flanagan and I (the two people in the sketch) didn't bat an eye. It really surprised me. Usually that kind of thing makes me want to set myself on fire. The producers had the great idea to have us do it again with a fresh audience, and boom!

I'm not sure how much I'll be in this Saturday's episode, but I can bet it'll be more than last week. And you know what? I've shot a lot, so it'll all (as they say) come out in the wash. Last night they screened my "Drunk Reporter" piece. It was one of the first things I taped for Mad, and I'd almost forgotten about it. In it, I pretended to be a reporter interviewing people on the street who didn't think he was working that day and had had a few "pops" earlier. Basically, he's shitty. I interviewed real people while acting loaded (which was terrifying), but it looks like it came out funny. At one point one of the people I talked to said to a producer, "I think that reporter's going to get fired." Success!

But then, I know drunk like W.C. Fields. Could do it in my schleep.

Your pal always,
Fatty Arbuckle

Currently listening : Live to Tell By Madonna Release date: 1998-07-07

2:30 AM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

I feel like a real jerk.

Shouldn't have run my mouth. Last night I was in the Mad TV premiere for maybe ten seconds, no dialogue. Sorry, friends and family. Basically, it was because I'm not in a lot of the topical sketches, and that's Mad's bread and butter. Feel real guilty for having my folks stay up. I basically drank sad afterwards, which I hate myself to do. Drinking is for happy, not for sad. Not sure what pot brownies are for, emotion-wise. So, to sum up, if you watched the show for me I hope you enjoyed my boy wig. More to come, I swear!

I'm now recovering and watching "Baby Mama." Every time I see people on TV or in the movies living in New York in "Sex and the City"-type environs, I laugh. To live in those areas and have an apartment the size of the "Friends" gang, you would have to be at least a millionaire. But no, Greg Kinear runs a juice store. I wanna make a movie where my character works twice a week as a bartender, but lives in a mansion in the hills. I would have a golden robot suit and never explain my income. Basically, "Iron Man" without the super brain and engineering skills.

Oh, here comes the sad song montage. But I refuse to be sad! This movie is a mess. Not horrible, but not amazing. I keep wishing I was watching "30 Rock."

I was at work for 13 hours on Friday, and when I got done around midnight, I went back to my trailer and a huge spider fell out of my t-shirt as I picked it up. It wouldn't have been any weirder if it suddenly put on glasses and read me a story.

Go get some ice cream,
Television Schoolboy

Currently listening : Now or Heaven Release date: 2008-09-09

1:28 PM - 12 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Today’s the big day!

Okay, so Mad TV premieres tonight (11:00 on Fox. Plug!). We've been working real hard, and the last month has been (to say the least) surreal. It's been a lot of fun, stressful at times, challenging, and different from anything I've ever done ever. Every time I try to think of an experience to blog about, I get sidetracked with another insane memory. So, for now, here are some things I've learned while working on Mad TV:

1) Bobby Lee loves to drop his pants.
2) There is nothing like smashing a phone with a pair of nunchucks in front of a live studio audience. Nothing.
3) Having a sketch you wrote go well in front of a crowd is like the time I fell out of a boat into crashing rapids as a child and caught hold of a rock jutting out of the water. That is, terror, then relief.
4) Arden Myrin is not of this earth. She is from Planet Fun.
5) Nicole Parker, Erica Ash, Lauren Pritchard, and Johnny Sanchez are ninjas of performance. Pure precision.
6) Wigs hurt sometimes, but they're awesome.
7) Standing fully clothed under the fountain in front of the Arclight is great. Stepping out of it and screaming is fantastic.
8) Eric Price is a dick and hates his dog and wife.
9) Crista Flanagan is a supervillian.
10) You can't say "Chinaman" in a sketch on TV. Or "Cocktastic" (Actually, the second one I'm just guessing on).

Best,
MB

P.S. I love you.

Currently listening : Vaudeville Villain By Viktor Vaughn aka MF Doom Release date: 2003-09-16

4:35 PM - 9 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

What just happened?

Here's the new one of me to enjoy from Mad TV.

Not sure when I'll be able to wrap my mind around it, but last night I looked at the finished version of a set built based on a sketch I wrote. After that, I rehearsed on it. Then, later, taped the sketch I wrote in front of a live studio audience. It did great. Seriously, I keep turning around today going, "Did that actually happen?"

The debut is Sept. 13th. TiVo!

I don't have TiVo, so TiVo.

Seriously, right now I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my chest and head. All last week all I thought about was, "What if my sketch bombs?" And it didn't. Never in my life have I had such a situation. And believe me, this is for all of you (at least the people I know personally who read this). Because if it would have ate ass, I would have been insufferable for days to come. To the point where you would have to go, "Ah, fuck off, Braunger."

But it didn't. Whooooooooooo!!!

Enjoy your Saturday and every day after it,
Mashed Boner

11:05 AM - 10 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Leaked Mad TV video on Funnyordie

Hope you like it.

You're the best around,
No one's gonna ever keep you down

2:21 PM - 6 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment