This is the ‘Oh my God, I haven’t written in a long time” blog entry.

Yeah, you guys!  With no Gossip Girl episodes to keep me on the straight and narrow with posting, I am a total wayward child!

The past couple weeks have been pretty busy, getting a lot of personal administrative (and some creative) stuff out of the way before I disappear into six weeks of 50-hour work weeks!  I am “balancing” two jobs:  UES summer camp teacher/counselor and Downtown theater accountant.  It gets a little crazy like this every once in awhile, but I’ll gladly emerge from this whirlwind with a slightly bigger pile of cash than I had before (ESPECIALLYINTHISECONOMY).

And not only has my work/life ratio been dramatically – albeit temporarily – shifted, I’ll also be attending more weddings this year than I have in the last three years combined!   I hear that this is only the beginning -  that  I should look forward to several more weddings a year as (my peers and) I travel unwillingly through my late twenties.  That means (my peers and) I will have less than two and a half years left to make fun of people in their 30s….  Oy, that’s mean, isn’t it?  It’s pretty awful.  Well, at least that means that will I probably deserve what’s coming to me, which I’ve heard includes: increasingly slower metabolism, increasingly eye cream-resistant wrinkles, increasingly valid anxiety about whether or not I’ll ever reach my full potential as a human being, and increasingly pathetic realizations that my boobs have (probably?) ALREADY reached their full potential as boobs.

Plus, there’s nothing like working with little kids – BORN IN 2002 and 2003!!!!! – to really drive the point home that I am a grown up.  And that I should probably not be eating these fruit roll ups for dinner at 9:21pm at night.

I Couldn’t Think of Anything to Write, So I Changed My Blog Picture

I’ve been sitting here trying to think about what to write, but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to commit to and bring to a possibly gnarly conclusion. I wrote a blog earlier about something very personal, but I decided not to publish it. It’s sitting in my drafts. There are plenty of drafts I’ve never published. Someday (not now, but at the end of the year), I might publish them.

So instead of continuing to push myself creatively, I changed my blog header picture (see above). Pretty rad, huh? This picture was taken by Tom while we were walking around Long Island City last month. Those tigers are really cool. I think they are going to Las Vegas to see if Siegfried and Roy are still up for recreational tiger fun. They’re just waiting for their driver, Juan, who is inside the bar/restaurant getting stacks of cash from their pimp. Juan gets to keep any unused per diem, so he will probably end up mistreating the tigers and make them stay three to a room, even though he knows that two of them won’t want to share a bed – they’ll have to get a cot.

Anyway, Juan is taking his time, probably sipping some Maker’s on the rocks even though he has to drive. But Juan has never been one to say no to a free drink. Well, he’ll get plenty of those in Las Vegas with his washboard moustache and curly abs. I’m just going to take this picture with the tigers and hope that Juan doesn’t catch me. Once these tigers make it to Vegas, we’ll never hear from ‘em again. They’ll be livin’ it up. La vida loca. Yeah. What happens there will stay there. Bro.

So to summarize: because I couldn’t think of anything of substance to share with the world, I changed my image (see above), and that inspired me to write that story about the tigers. What started out as a creative quest turned into a shallow PR move, which turned into the resolution of my creative quest. Done, done, and done.

Take good care of my boys (and possibly one girl), Juan. They deserve the very best.

And you know what, Juan? I almost lost that blog post because I highlighted the text prior to inserting that picture from “File”, but thankfully I had greedily pasted the entire thing into the “Excerpt” section because I don’t like to choose between my word children. But the point is that I almost lost that text, and that goes to show that nothing’s too precious. Nothing’s too sacred. And there’s probably no one is watching out for anyone else. Except you. So just give those tigers each their own beds, huh? Won’t you?

Why Star Trek Was So Great!!!

DO NOT READ THIS HERE BELOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE AND DO NOT LIKE SPOILERS (UNLIKE ME,WHO LOVES SPOILERS BECAUSE I’M NUMB INSIDE – VULCAN STYLE)!!!

This movie was GREAT (to me) for several reasons:

1.  Like, SO many Asians are it.

OBVS, you have to have Sulu in it and John Cho was a great choice.  It’s freaking amazing to see an Asian in a Hollywood production (not portraying a stereotype), like, EVER.  This Star Trek movie had SEVERAL because, well, it kind of makes sense.  There are TONS of Asians on EARTH, so chances are there will be a lot of them in space too.  In addition to Cho, there was Faran Tahir as Richard Robau, captain of the U.S.S. Kelvin.  Also, there was an Asian space doctor (of course) and lots of Asian crew members all up in the back.. Star Trek has always been reppin with George Takei (original Hikaru Sulu), Rosalind Chao (Keiko O’Brien) and Ensign Kim (Garrett Wang), so it was great to see that continued.  Star Date THANKS FOR ACKNOWLEDGING THAT ASIANS EXIST!

2.  You guys, Uhura and Spock had a relationship like that?!?!

That was tight, yo.  It could have played out really rejectedly, but it was kinda hot.  And intense.  I especially liked how Uhura (Zoe Saldana) was kissing superpassionately, but Spock (Zachary Pinto) had, like, a stoic kiss.  Have we ever seen a Vulcan kiss?!  We have now!  And it was awkward in a sexy way – like the male equivalent of a naughty librarian. Which leads me to…

3.  YOUNG SPOCK IS HAWWWWT!!!

Oh my God, are you kidding me?!  First of all, Zachary Pinto is already hot.  Then you turn him into the younger version of one of the most beloved characters in the history of television (and film)?  Oh yeah.  Even that bowl hair cut and funky dunky eyebrow/ear situation can’t hold down the sexiness!  I mean, I already have a weakness for laconic intellectuals.  This was out of control.

4.  This shit was really funny shit.

J.J. Abrams always has a great sense of humor, which is one thing that makes his shows (ok, some of them) great.  He really busted out the hilarity here without taking away from the plot:  the bloated hand sequence with young Kirk, cool one liners from Spock, Simon Pegg (Scottie), and the little alien that hangs with Scottie (“Get down from there!”), etc. etc. etc.  I’ve always found Star Trek (especially TNG) to be chock full of humor.

KAH-DOOZE to J.J. for infusing the movie with great laughs!

5.  It wasn’t that “scary”.

OK, this is probably the most debatable point I’m making here.  Many many people were disappointed that there wasn’t a greater sense of danger, despite the splosions and universe-ending mission.  We know Abrams can do suspense, but in keeping with any of the television series, did ANYONE ever feel scared watching an episode of Star Trek?  (Admittedly, I was sometimes afraid that I might accidentally see someone’s boner through a Federation uniform, but I think that was just my own anxiety issue/perversion/neuroses….)

ANYWAY, there were plenty of life-and-death situations in all the Star Trek series, but none of them had the suspense of “24″ or “X-Files”.  We can’t reasonably expect that level of suspense here either – I mean, there are women wearing regulation go go dancing outfits, for God sakes!  There’s a strong expectation these days for action movies to feel SUPER dangerous – and indeed, some of the previous Star Trek movies did have a greater sense of jeopordy.  However, I think it was a fine choice not to go the “OMGOMGOMG, we’re gonna die” route over and over again with this movie.  There was plenty of danger, but we knew they were going to get out of it somehow – which we all obviously knew coming into the movie anyway, right?

Plus, I am a scaredy cat and that was a fine level of suspense for me.  Jalapeno, not habenero.

6.  Great casting.

I mean, GREAT casting.  Not only did these fuckers look very much like the originals (Karl Urban even has a heart shaped face like the original McCoy), these actors had a fresh take while staying true to the characters.  It was hilarious that Pavel had an even MORE unintellible Russian/somewhat Polish accent – and although the funny accent bit is slightly SNL, the whole thing was as well executed as it could have been.  Most importantly Chris Pine had the Kirk-ness down. He had a really great moment when he sits down as captain for the first time, and we see a GLIMPSE of the future James T. Kirk.  I’m talking Shatner-esque rhythm and gaze.  It was just that subtle, and it worked.

7.  Gorgeous!

The movie was gorgeous.  All the cool effects that you’d want to see.

Yaaaay!  I would definitely see this movie again – especially in IMAX.  This movie was waaaay different from all the other Star Trek movies and series, but it did the job. (That’s right,  J.J. went where no one has gone before.)

Nadya and Her Mom at it AGAIN!

The original video is here on Radar.

Also, we’ve been getting GREAT feedback on all our Octo-mom videos on YouTube and Huffington Post, but if you are a fan, please help us out with our Funny or Die ratings!

Thank you for watching!!!!!

Octo-Mom v. Mom “I have a tumor” Showdown!

Juliet and I couldn’t resist continuing to ride the rubble of this train wreck!  Here’s a new parody of the freaking ridiculous-ass interview that Octo-Mom Nadya Suleman did with her mother on www.radaronline.com

Juliet reprises her role as Nads and I play Angela Suleman, her Lithuanian mother/grandmom to 14.  Watch the mother-daughter craziness:

Also, thank you for checking out our original parodies of the Octo-Mom v. Ann Curry videos, which were featured on CNN and have received over 100,000+ hits on Huffington Post and YouTube!  Thank you to everyone who has been watching them and leaving comments/ratings – the response has been overwhelming and we’re having so much fun w/ these because we are sick, sick people and we’re glad you are too!!!!

Worst Subway Station Performers…

The E/V/6 Train platforms at 51st/53rd and Lexington CONSISTENTLY have the worst subway performers EVER.  I thought the worst was an early-twenties blonde chick w/ a PA and mic singing Madonna’s “Get Into the Groove” like a 5-year-old kid trying to sound like Michael Jackson at the family Christmas party.  Terrible.

Then there was the most un-swinging “jazz” trumpeter ever.

Finally, trying to get down from my part-time job on the UES to my other part-time job in Soho last week, there was an NYU-looking kid w/ huge ironic glasses playing terribly with a girl (wannabe fuck buddy?) sitting next to him, bobbing her head in mock enthusiasm and adding random non-harmonizing “oohs” and “aahs”.  I thought it couldn’t get any worse when they launched into a pained rendition of “Piano Man” by Billy Joel.  Even the “la-di-dee-das” didn’t sound right. I wanted to kill myself.

Terrible.  TERRIBLE musicians.

On the flip side, there are sometimes REALLY effing good musicians that make your day:  the virtuoso Chinese dulcimer player in Times Square, the hipster who somehow manages to drag a console piano down into the West 4th Station, and the jazz trio lead by a flugel horn/trumpet player at Columbus Circle.  It’s so hit or miss, but the awfulness of the Lexington station makes me long for a good mariachi band….

American Idol: First Semi-Final Results Show!

AI is finally getting good!  Read the full recap of the Group One Semi-Final Results Show.  Excerpt:

Tonight on Fox is the American Idol Results Show of the first semi-finals.  Ryan asks how the judges felt about last night’s performance overall.  Randy gives some vague commentary, saying that it was good with some disappointments.  OBVIOUSLY.  Kara (who is wearing a really ugly suit jacket) actually names names:  Stevie, Casey, Stephen.

Per usual, there are some strange sexual tension jokes about Simon and the other judges.  This is getting TOO weird and I only think it will get worse as the season goes on.  The awkwardness is broken up by…

…THE corniest group performance I’ve ever seen on AI.  They split into trios and sing Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours”, which is fine around a campfire in Hawaii, but not on a national television show with frickin lasers in the background.  The worst trio is Ann Marie, Casey and Tatiana, who don’t even attempt to harmonize with each other and sound like three girls singing at a high school assembly.  The group performance only gets worse when they do the classic Idol guy-girl pair off, segues into choreography that involves shimmying.  However, it gets better at the end when they sing together as a group without too many bells and whistles.

Now we see a montage of last night’s performances.  We get to watch Jackie Tohn in her crazy spandex leggings again, and Braddy in his male wedding planner outfit.  We see clips of the younger performers who cracked under the pressure (Stevie and Casey performances look even worse than I remember when shown as 10 second clips).  In comparison, Tatiana looked pretty good!  But freaking ANOOP!!!!!!!!!!!  I love this guy!  Next, we see Ann Marie and Alexis singing Aretha Franklin back to back, and they had some pretty great moments (though I still strongly disagree with the comparison of Alexis to Kelly Clarkson).  And finally, Danny was the shizz!!!!!!!!

I just realized today is my one year anniversary of being a “comedian”!!!

That’s right! Last year on Feb 8, 2008, I shut down my computer and walked through the halls of Jazz at Lincoln Center for the very last time.

House of Swing

It was the place where I had grown up – the job listed on the match.com profile that Tom clicked on, and my first job after making the grown-up decision to purposely veer off the Corporate America road that I had spent four years of undergraduate business school preparing for. And now I didn’t know what my life would be like when I woke up the next morning.

After six months of moonlighting as a stand-up comedian – making invoices by day and making audiences laugh/shudder by night, I was ready to say hello to la vie boheme for good!

I pushed in my chair for the last time – a now-orphaned leather roll-y chair that would probably become the object of a very heated argument on Monday morning. But who cared?! I was on my way to play ukulele at Highline Ballroom with my friends April Smith and the Great Picture Show (opening for Fountains of Wayne)!!!

April Smith

I took a big ass breath and picked up my bag full of the chatchkis that had sat on my desk for nearly three years. I was totally ready for my ceremonious walk through the halls…

…when the phone rang!!! At first, I thought it was my alarm reminder to take a once-a-day anti-baby pill, but no…

…it was the casting department of NBC Universal, calling me in to audition for a principle role on the sitcom Kath & Kim!!! I took this as an omen that I had made the right decision.

At one point, my potential co-workers

I obviously didn’t get the role (and kind of thank God), but I was in bliss! The first few weeks of unemployment were spent in awe of my newfound freedom, living off savings and vacation payout.

Then began the craaazy string of temp/part-time/freelance jobs:

Teacher’s aide at a private school on the Upper East Side
Senior accountant temp at an education software company
Pre-K co-teacher for summer camp at aforementioned UES private school
Barista at d’espresso coffee bar on the Lower East Side
Pet sitter (from a 3-week-old Shit Zhu to a 100-pound Coon Hound)
Freelance hedge fund assistant
Craigslist spammer
Part-time finance associate at Here Arts Center
TV/film extra (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Cold Case, Ugly Betty, 30 Rock, Bored to Death)
Blogger for VH1 Digital (laid off when the site went kaput!)

I remember one of my first gigs after leaving my job. I bumped into fellow performer Danny Katz at Sulu Series, and he told me how happy he was for me – but also that he had tried unsuccessfully to leave his job in the past. This served as overshadowing for the hard times to come:

No health insurance
Scraping together quarters to buy a MetroCard
Eating pancakes, tater tots and frozen Ikea meatballs exclusively for several weeks in a row
Barely making rent
NOT making rent

Of course, there are no downs without ups….

UP: Getting called back for a national commercial
DOWN: Walking 35 blocks home from the callback because I had run out of quarters to buy a MetroCard

UP: Getting a Daily Show Correspondent audition!
DOWN: Having my Verizon phone service cut off the morning after I found out about the audition

Jon????

UPdownUPdownUPdown.


Thank you to everyone who has been with me on the journey thus far (everyone tagged here)! You played a role in my transition from quirky office girl to broke comedian, and I thank you for it!

This year has been insane, but i made it through ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For all the bombing, failed auditions and wanting to quit EVERYDAY…

…here we go: Year TWO!!!

My unicorn and I can DO this!!! Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

In Bed With TED!

I’m so late on the train, but is anyone else obsessed with the TED Talks?  My first day logging on, I spent about 4 hours in bed watching these videos!!!

From left: Al Gore at TED2006; Jane Goodall at TED2003; Brian Greene at TED2005

With the motto “Ideas worth spreading”, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has been putting on conferences for over twenty years to bring together brilliant people from these three industries.

Launched in 2007, their website features over 200 TEDTalk videos, which are 18 minute “Inspired talks by the world’s leading thinkers and doers”.  Wow!!!  These aren’t your ordinary “how-to” videos presented by teenage girls in their bedrooms – nonono, TED is like the Lincoln Center of YouTube.  Part personal storytelling/part motivational speech TED is The Moth with a point.

And now thanks to video, we can all sit at the table with the cool kids!  TED rolls with people like:  former VP Al Gore, THE Jane Goodall, and neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Tayler.  We’ve also got the class nerds and band geeks such as:  Johnny Lee (who actually was a YouTube star) hacking into Wii remote controls before our very eyes,  Sir Ken Robert talking about how the school system is killing creativity (whaaaa???), David Gallo showing us phosphorescent creatures of the deep and Nellie McKay performing some songs on piano and uke (though she doesn’t actually give a speech, as I don’t think anyone could sit through 18 minutes of someone talking in a 1930s voice).

My absolute favorite, though, is Benjamin Zander.  Zander is conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, and he has an INCREDIBLY infectious love for classical music and is a tireless cheerleader in sharing his passion with others.  Given by anybody else, this talk would have been a corny trainwreck, but Zander’s bursting-at-the-seams enthusiasm is really disarming.  Plus, he’s funny (middle-aged white dude funny)!  If he wanted to, he could be the next Victor Borge.

This entire series reminds me of a more mini-mic-wearing version of the Ira Glass storytelling video on YouTube that I looooove:

He should do a TEDTalk!

Anyway, I think these talks are a great hybrid of educational and cultural content – weeee!  I am truly relieved that amongst all the crap that is being broadcast on YouTube (although I will always love Hamster on a Piano), we have some quality original videos online.   I’m preaching to the choir, but I think TED proves that although absolutely nothing can replace the magic of a live event, it’s fucking great when the good ones documented so that they can live on in embeddable, 3″x5″ glory!

American Idol Auditions: Season 8, Episode 5

Here’s the latest American Idol Recap of lackluster auditions in Jacksonville, FL, where only 16 tickets to Hollywood were given out.  However, at least we got to see hilarious footage of a mohawked Randy Jackson in his days as a bassist for the band Journey:

WOOOOOOOOOOOW

This episode of ‘American Idol’ starts off with some great (sexual?) tension between Simon and Ryan during their limo ride through the swamps of  Jacksonville, FL.  The judges arrive safely at the audition location with a police escort for some unknown reason.  Maybe this is just how they roll?  Or maybe the “be careful” guy from Louisville, KY presented a new threat like “remember to wash your hands”?!

We jump into a montage set to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”, which shows a youthful Randy playing a pink polka dot bass and rocking the widest mohawk ever known to man.  Even my Rock Band video game avatar wishes it could be that cool!  They intersplice the Randy tribute with auditioners screaming stuff about Jacksonville – get it?  Randy Jackson…ville?!  Randy isn’t even from Jacksonville – it’s just that his last name is the first part of the city’s name.  The producers were really stretching out their brain tissue on this one.  I’m sure we will get similar montages when we hit up Abdul-dale or Dio Guardia-ton or Cowell-inchester.

To read the entire blow-by-blow recap, check it out on TV Grapevine here:  American Idol Recap.