Buy "One Sara Show" Tix Online - Get Free Drink!

I'm giving readers of my blog the hook-up, ultimate booze-style. If you buy advance online tickets for Sara Schaefer's One Sara Show (featuring a cameo from yours truly) enter the coded SSFAN to get a drink ticket at the box office. Sara. Me. Alcohol. What more do you people want?

A Halloween Miracle

Well, not quite a miracle, but a delightful story nonetheless.

So, I was coming home from a delightful Halloween party at my friends' place* in Morningside Heights, dressed in my painstakingly accurate Shaun-from-Shaun of the Dead costume. Looking to snag a cab, I raised my cricket bat in cab-hailing formation. My wife, seeing a police car down the street, scolded me to put my bat down, apparently afraid that the fuzz would mistake us for a roving gang of cricket hooligans.

Sure enough, at the nearest light, the police car stopped, rolled down the window, and the cop in the passenger seat yelled...

"Hey! Why don't you try throwing records at the taxis!?"

Now, like most folks under the age of, say, 35, I have ambivalent feelings about the police. Living in NYC (and in not the world's nicest neighborhood) I'm always happy to see them around. Still, I have the usual fear of people with lots and lots of authority and guns.

However, this police officer not only identified my costume from 30 feet away, thought of a funny and appropriate-to-Shaun of the Dead remark, and yelled it to me. In that moment, to me, he was truly New York's finest.

Bravo, cop. Bravo.

*One of said friends being inimitable children's literature blogger Betsy "Fuse #8," who gave The Flop House a beautiful shout-out over at her School Library Journal site. Thanks to her for that, although god knows what her audience will make of the podcast. Thankfully she makes clear just how profane we tend to get.

Congratulations, Sara Schaefer!

What did I do, immediately following my performance in the smash sketch comedy show Zombira's Scaretaculous Halloween Horrortacular*?

I went to a launch party for Sara Schaefer's new AOL online music show, The DL! How was the party, you ask? It was awesome. Let me count the ways.

1. Weird Al was there. Granted, I did not witness this, as I had to come late, thanks to the aforementioned sketch show. But really, how cool is this? Knowing that mere minutes earlier, the Hawaiian-shirted one trod that very floor. Oh, and also, the video invite to the party featured Hulk Hogan.

2. Sara was 8 feet tall. Well, not in person-- but, throughout the evening, footage of Sara doing music journalism-y things (like interviewing Regina Spektor) were projected on the back wall throughout.


Imagine this, but as big as your apartment.

How weird is it, to be at a huge party (AOL rented out the entire Canal Room for chrissake), thrown in honor of a show starring a friend of mine, someone I used to write for and perform with in the old Sara Schaefer is Obsessed With You? About a millionth as weird as it must have been for Sara. You're a superstar, baby.

3. Open bar. As I said to Sara, "Thank you for getting famous, so we get free drinks."

4. Some random girl hit on me. I am, as I told said random girl, married. Happily so. However, that doesn't keep me from being flattered by unexpected pick-up attempts. Thanks for inflating my sense of self worth, mystery girl!

But mostly it was awesome because Sara deserves it. She's funny, appealing, talented, and she couldn't be a nicer person. So congratulations to my old fake boss! I look forward to seeing you on the Internet. Go check out The DL, people!

*last chance to see it tonight!

BIG doings, Tonight!

I have two shows at the Gene Frankel Underground tonight:

First, at 7:15 PM - The last of our "Captains in Space LIVE!" events:

Tonight we will be debuting an ALL NEW EPISODE, before it's available online. See it on the big screen first (you may even be privledged to see an "early cut" as Fed might tweak it based on audience reaction... so you can brag to your friends about all the great scenes that were cut from the release version, like the one where Fed crawls around on the ceiling like a spider, or the extended Frankie shower scene).

More importantly (to me, at least), this is the first Captains episode to be written by me. I helped punch up some of the other episodes, but this is the first one to be drawn entirely from my original script. So, if you didn't care for the first three episodes but love this one you can draw your own conclusions. If you loved the first three episodes, but hate this one, then clearly the problem was in the direction. You hear me, Fed!?

Both Captain Fed and I will be on hand to introduce my episode, "Future Shock," as well as episode three, "Double," and to do our little song-and-dance. But never fear if you miss the hilarity-- the new episode will be available online soon.

Second, at 10:00 PM - The final New Kalan Show at the Gene Frankel Theater

To quote Elliott's promotional email:

"Next week brings with it a momentous occasion. On thursday, May 25th, our beloved, small-audienced live fake comedy talk show will be saying its farewells to its longtime home the Gene Frankel Theater. Where's it going? Why, to a DIFFERENT underground theater, and a whole new day and time! Get ready for next month's unveiling of the all-new PRIMETIME KALAN!

But before we welcome the future, let's say goodbye to the past, with the last of 'The New Kalan Show''s and our final performance at the Gene Frankel. All your favorite Kalan characters (Erik! Brock! Dan! Devon! Elliott!) will be there! Special guest comedienne SARA SCHAEFER will be there! Shouldn't YOU be there, too?!

Plus more jokes, sketches, hijinx, emotional damage, and craziness! Help say, "Good riddance, you bastard!" to that crummy theater!"

Come see all the regular New Kalan stuff plus my tearful (?) reunion with my old SSIOWY boss. It should be great fun.






PLUS: It's not just the New Kalan's last night at the Gene Frankel theater -- it's the Manhattan Comedy Collective's last night at the theater. That's right, after tonight all the vestages of Juvie Hall and its children will be swept away forever (or to a bar a few blocks away. One or the other). To celebrate this, MC2 is putting on a special FREE improv jam at 11 PM, just following The New Kalan Show, complete with FREE Jell-o shots.

Captains.

Kalan.

Jell-o shots.

What more could you need?

The Gene Frankel Theater Underground
24 Bond Street (aka East 2nd St.)
In the East Village, on the north side of Bond Street, between Bowery & Lafayette. In the basement theater. Take the 6 to Bleeker, B/D/F/V to Broadway Lafayette, or R to Prince.

Cost:

-$5 for 10 PM show ONLY.
-$10 for entire night of shows (including both of my shows, at 7:15 and 10 and everything in-between). Includes 1 free drink ticket.

Celebrating (to) the End

Last night's party to celebrate the end of Juvie Hall was pretty awesome, and shame on you if you didn't come.

"But Dan! I had work Tuesday morn..."

A-bup-bup-bup! You're dead to me.

The details are hazy (it was held in a bar), but I seem to remember doing a long interpretive dance, with intermittant short beverage breaks, with Autumn Clark, and having a lengthy argument with Eric Zuckerman, in which he took the role of Bob Hoskins and I essayed the role of Michael Caine.

You know, the usual annoying performer jackass stuff. But fun.

As for Juvie Hall, it will be sorely missed. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, etc. etc. But before it's gone forever, check out my last few posts, and come see me perform there this weekend.

And thank you Erik Marcisak for driving me home, so I need not brave the subways while cold, tired, and tipsy. Has the E train made its last exit to Brooklyn?

Voluminous End-of-November Update

Hey kids...

It's been a while since I've posted anything on here. I apologize. Although I don't know why I'm apologizing to you, my few readers. I have no obligation to post on my blog. I should be apologizing to me. I'm only hurting myself, since I started this blog to let people know when and where I'd be performing, or if there was a bit of my writing that I wanted to draw your attention to, or whatever. So I've failed myself. Sorry Dan.

But now I'm back. And ready to write a long blog entry with lots and lots of parentheses.

Anyway, the reason why I haven't written anything in a while, is that I'm in a period of transition. As you probably know, Sara Schaefer is Obsessed With You ended on November 11 (you can read what Sara has to say about it here). It was an awesome last show, and it was an awesome show in general. Thanks to Sara, who is one of the sweetest, funniest, all-around-best people I know, for getting me involved with it. Still, having it end has been sad, and it's sort of made me wonder what I should do next. I'm at a crossroads, if you will (if you will allow me to be pretentious, that is).

What's next for me? That's what I'm trying to decide. Recently I contributed (for the first time) a bit to Andres Du Bouchet's excellent show Giant Tuesday Night of Amazing Inventions and Also There is a Game. It went over okay, I think (at least, it didn't stick out like a sore thumb), and I hope to contribute more material to that show, whenever they'll have me (although I won't have the sort of "official" involvement that I had with SSIOWY). Jest.com doesn't appear to be updating anymore, but I hope to be involved in an all-new comedy website soon-- although I can't yet give any details. My friend Fed is planning a series of comedy podcasts, a TV series in online form, and I'm going to be one of the writers for that (and I may show up in a guest spot or two). More news on that as it develops. I'm also planning to write a screenplay, just as soon as I can figure out what I want to write about. If anyone pitches an idea to me that I decide to use, I promise to give them 1% of any money I make from the sale of said theoretical script. 1% of a likely $0.00! You can't beat that, so send those ideas in! Maybe I'll do some more stand-up. There's been some vague discussion of a sketch group with some friends of mine. And I've been taking the "Writing for The Daily Show" class over at The P.I.T. So feel free to hire me, Daily Show. But as for a solid new direction, who knows?

Anyway, in the meantime, if you're jonesing for your Dan fix, you can see me at Church Basement on December the 19th at 8 PM. I'll be delivering a couple of my high-larious essays at this bi-monthly reading series, at Mickey's Blue Room on Avenue C between 10th and 1th Streets. Also, if you want to see me at a more social, but still comedy-related, function, you can come to the party to celebrate/ mourn the sad end of Juvie Hall. It's at Slainte (directions behind the link) starting at 7 PM on December 19. You'll recognize me. I'll be the one crying into my beer.

And now, to reward you for slogging through all of that text, here are some photographs of the final Sara Schaefer is Obsessed With You, courtesy of one of my SSIOWY co-writers, the inimitable Kara Lee Burk:









Oh, the misty watercolored memories...

Cocktail Hour a SMASHing Success

The Cocktail Hour website has an episode guide up, detailing the episode for which I was a guest. I'd like to point out that any drinking game I was playing was unintentional. It may have looked like I was taking a drink whenever anyone talked, but I was merely following my usual policy of taking a drink every 2.5 seconds. Obviously.

This is the hit sketch team Frowned Upon, otherwise known as D'Arce and Dev of The Cocktail Hour fame. Devon is the one in the cart, and D'Arcy is the one denying him the bag of dehydrated lentils he so desperately wants.