Out of Bounds!

So. Austin Comedy Hour had a great show at the Hideout Theater Wednesday night--awesome job by Bobby DiPasquale, Scott Moss and Brett Tribe. SO MUCH FUN. And not just because I got to fake make-out with Scott Moss.

Then tonight. Yes. Ok. I came out like a banshee--a harpy bitch from hell--yelling something like, "What the fuck, dude? You told me 9:30! I've been in that fucking theater since 6:00!"

All true. I went to the theater solely because I was going to see Jorak & Jorak, who I thought were performing at 9:30. Turns out they were performing at 11:30. And I owed it to both my guy and the dog to get my ass home and participate in the first weekend of college football watching. It's part of the whole richer/poorer, sickness/health thing. And as a recently laid-off writer now depending solely on my sugar daddy for food and shelter, well, if something like coming home to watch a little football makes both of us happy? All good.

So, in the 3.5 hours, I got to see some really great moments, an audience enjoying the crap out of themselves, a friend in from LA (Hi, Brent Foshee!), the friend I yelled at (Sorry, Scott Moss), my favorite photographer doing improv magic with her man (Hi, Meredith Mae Roberts), a Nicolosi alum in action (Hi Kirk Johnson), an entire 30-minute riff on one of my favorite movies (Girls Just Want to Have Fun--thanks Atlantic Pacific Bravo!) and a lot of great Austinites mixing it up with those in from the bigger cities.

And the icing? Brent Foshee slides in next to me to watch Triggerfinger, and says, "These are friends from L.A." Turns out at least one of them is my friend, too! Michael Garcia and I were in improv class together way back when in Houston, Texas. But he's been buried in my facebook feed, and I had no idea he had moved to L.A., much less flew back to ATX to perform at Out of Bounds! Life is too, too sweet. And this awesomeness isn't over yet--tomorrow morning I'll be meeting the comedienne who schooled both of us--Second City grad Kim McGaw.


And we'll be eating at the Magnolia. So all in all, this weekend can't get much better than it is already.

Seattle Calling!

So this landed in the Austin Comedy Hour's inbox today. What can we say? Zak's a smart man. Crockpots is one of my favorites too. If you haven't seen it yet, look to your right. And if you're going to be in Seattle in September, check out SketchFest Seattle!

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Hey Austin Comedy Hour,

My name is Zak Nelson and I am the Sponsorships/Education Coordinator at Seattle SketchFest. I really enjoyed a lot of your videos that I saw online. The Taboo and Crockpots sketches were especially funny. The Crockpots one was probably my favorite though. The timing and the pacing of it were just great. So with that said...

SketchFest Seattle opened our applications on April 11th and I'd be remiss if I didn't get you to apply. We decide our festival roster by a committee vote among the staff, and if you apply you'll definitely have me rooting for you. We're bringing out of town acts in for the last week of the festival, Sept 27th & 28th...I really do hope to see your application, because you're awesome! Apply here: http://www.sketchfest.org/apply/

~Zak Nelson
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Weird Girls: Day One!

What a great day of shooting! I made a little video to tell you about it.Want to know more? Check it!

Yes. I love Weird Girls.

Weird Girls is all about staying true to yourself and the things you love.

I love my home life. Love it. My dog. My dude. Our weekend routines. The sleeping in. The making fancy breakfasts. So when I skip out on all that, it's for a good reason.

This weekend I have a good reason.

Mark Gardner, Producer/Director/Writer/Champion of Cell: The Web Series is shooting a pilot for his latest web series: Weird Girls. You might remember a while back we did a table read for the whole series. It was amazing--the writing, the premise and the Weird Girls themselves, brought to life by a group of very talented young actors.

There are so many good things about being a part of this--this is an exceptional series--so reward #1. Cast and crew collaboration is reward #2. Spending two whole days with one of my favorite people in the world, and her daughter (who I have the distinct honor of co-mom-ing on set) is reward #3. Really I could go on and on. But I won't. This is starting to sound like an Academy Award speech. So I'll just point upwards and we'll save the rest for the movie.

So yes. Weird Girls is definitely another thing I love. And in the meantime, I must find teacher clothes. And love the fact that this is one shoot I may get through with my shoes firmly on my feet and a complete lack of the sticky summertime stench of fake blood.

For a sneak peek of what's to come, check out Weird Girls.

Sketchfest! SketchFight!

   I don't want to bury the lede--In May/June, Austin Comedy Hour   performed at both SketchFest 2013 and in the three-weekend SketchFight! show at the City Theatre. And we've been invited to do the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival too! YAY!

Now to the important stuff: I have a new talent. It is a latent-until-now ability to do the WORST Bill Cosby impersonation you've ever seen. It's Bill Cosby with a palsy. Bill Cosby the dolphin enchantor (yeah. high voiced Bill Cosby.). Bill Cosby as will only be seen by my sketch troupe, privately, because Scott Moss is our real-life and very talented Bill Cosby impersonator.

I discovered this talent when the aforementioned Scott Moss had to skip a line-through, and I took over. And we all (minus Scott) discovered the brilliance together.

So. Because I'm a poor blogger, you have missed the chance to see even Scott Moss's Bill Cosby. Or the return of the great Brent Foshee who came back from LA for SketchFest. Or the addition of Heath Thompson and Brett Tribe to the Austin Comedy Hour crew. And the always charming Bobby DiPasquale. We mustn't forget him.

But the good news is, you will be able to see us take the stage again in August.

Go Joe!

You guys, Joe Nicolosi rocks. He would rock even if he didn't do these awesome freaking videos, because Joe is a funny, wonderful, all-around-great-to-know guy. But, he does do these awesome videos!

And since you can't yet see his latest live action short, Hell, No! unless you're at the Stanley Film Festival RIGHT THIS MINUTE enjoying terrifying greatness in the halls of the very hotel that inspired Stephen King's The Shining, you'll have to make do with this. And you won't be disappointed.

I AM a writer, dammit!

I am.
I am, I am, I am.

If I sound petulant, it's because I'm tired of arguing with myself. On one level, yes. I am a writer. It's what I get paid to do. It's in my job description. It's my day job's raison d'etre if you want to get all fancy and French about it.

But on one level, I'm not. On that level, I'm a a procrastinator. And a perfectionist. And a self-promotion artist. Who, to be honest, should spend more time writing and less time self-promoting. And every time I whine about not having enough time, I think about Stephen King banging out Carrie on a typewriter on his motherfucking lap, sitting between the washer and the dryer with a couple of kids and a wife outside the door waiting for him.

So. I've fallen short where it hurts the most. With my own writing. And the most success I've had to date focusing and actually getting shit done has been during Nanowrimo. Which falls during November. Until, that is, I saw that holy crap! There's a summer camp! There are TWO summer camps. And damn it, I'm doing both of them. There. It's in writing.

The poems. The short stories. The novels. The children's books. The sketch comedy. The screenplays. For the love of god, something is going to get polished and finished and submitted.

And here is my inspiration: From J. Robert Lennon's March 24, 2013 review of Jamie Quatro's I Want to Show You More--

"A truly excellent writer, though, pursues her obsessions and allows them to dictate what form her work will take. That sounds simple, but in fact it is hard for any writer to recognize what those obsessions are, to face them squarely when they are frightening or puzzling, and to shape them into persuasive works of art. That is why we so admire what George Saunders is doing now, or what Alice Munro has been doing for the last few decades: They have been living with their obsessions for a long time and have figured out how to give them form."

And for just a little more to shoot for:
"Jamie Quatro's "I Want to Show You More" is an obsessive first collection that feels like a fifth or sixth. It is a dogged, brutally thoughtful piece of work, and gives us a writer of great originality and apparent artistic maturity who seems to have come out of nowhere...it is a strange, thrilling and disarmingly honest piece of work."

Coming soon. Ready or not.