See Me Perform Tonight!

A reminder: I will be in Andres Du Bouchet & Co.'s show Giant Tuesday Night of Amazing Inventions and Also There is a Game, doing a bit I wrote, tonight, March the 7th, at 8:00 PM at Rififi/Cinema Classics 332 E. 11th St. (between 1st & 2nd Aves.) There is one drink minimum, but drinks are cheap, and I'll seem funnier with the booze anyway.

The Countdown to Captains in Space Continues...

The gallery at the Captains in Space website has been updated. And by "updated," I mean that there are now actually pictures there. We're still aiming to have the first episode out in early March, but until then, enjoy these exclusive, behind-the-scenes shots! And you didn't even have to buy the DVD for this stuff. Dear god, we're good to you people.






























There are a ton of great photos over there, but I'm leaving you with this one, because it's from Future Shock, the one out of this first cycle of episodes that I wrote. Hey, it's my blog after all.

Plugs = Free Stuff? Hmmn...

So, a while back, I wrote a piece for the then-still-alive-and-kicking Jest Magazine, titled Highlights From the 1st Annual Softcore Porn Awards (and boy am I ever so glad that this hi-larious article lives on via the Internet, for my mom to see). All of the movie titles and names of stars were made up except one: Misty Mundae. Those of you who are connoisseurs of late-night programming on off-brand premium cable channels like Showtime and Cinemax should recognize her from a series of titles put out by ei Independent Cinema, home of the Shock-O-Rama and Seduction Cinema imprints.

My fondness for Ms. Mundae is based on her looking like an actual, honest to god human, rather than some sort of surgical experiment. Additionally, she can actually act, as witnessed by her appearance in the recent Showtime's Masters of Horror episode "Sick Girl," directed by Lucky McKee. So I tossed her into the fake article, as a quiet little shout-out.

Months later, the completely delightful Paige Kay Davis, V.P. of Publicity at ei, contacted me to get her hands on the piece (apparently they keep all the press clippings that mention their movies/ stars). I sent her one of the now-out-of-print and sure to be a collectors' item issues (have YOU collected them all?), and, in return, she was kind enough to mail me a few DVDs. So I am now the proud owner of Bite Me, Screaming Dead, and Spiderbabe. See what comedy writing can get you, kids? It's a gold mine, I tells ya!

I am the darling of the exploitation film world.

In other news, I'm moving to another neighborhood in Brooklyn at the end of this month. Please give me all your cardboard boxes.

Congratulations

Just want to give a brief shout-out to friend and former manager of the gone-but-not-forgotten Juvie Hall, Erik Marcisak, who stars in a film that just made it into the Austin Film Festival. Good work, man.

Captains in Space Update and a Deranged Andy Rooneyesque Harangue

The Captains in Space website has been updated with a little more production information, and a great still of the cast (by the way, our thanks to The Apiary for making note of us last week). Check it out. The shoot was fun, despite the record-breaking snowfall, and Fed's already put together a nearly complete title sequence that looks mighty impressive, despite our budget of a dime, a thumbtack, and three dried pinto beans. This weekend I'll be recording some voice-over, announcer-y stuff, so you can look forward to my melifluous voice when the first episode hits in early March. It's all coming together, people. Start printing up those bootleg t-shirts.

Also, as it's Friday, may I remind NYC readers to pick up a copy of Metro for my friend Elliot Kalan's weekly column. It will brighten your otherwise miserable commute-- perhaps the only laughs you'll have on the subway that aren't nervous ones, as you try to avoid eye contact with the greasy guy fumbling around in his pants. I've also discovered that you can read it online here. So many ways to waste time at work...

But please, if you're reading the paper version, don't let your eyes drift down and to the right, or you might accidentally read The Metro Cartoon: It's All About You, (what a godawful, ungainly title). Is The Metro Cartoon: It's All About You the least funny comic strip in the world? (Comic strip. Comic strip, people! Multi-panel comics are strips. Cartoons are single panel, or they star Bugs Bunny. And, yeah, I realize this is a geeky thing to get annoyed about.) The answer is: not quite. But that's only because B.C.'s Johnny Hart became a born-again Christian.

Speaking of which: I'm sure thousands of people have made this observation before, but how is it that all these cavemen are Christians? It's right there in the title! B.C. Before Christ! It's like a comic about a bunch of Elizabethans standing around discussing how much they love George Washington...unless this is some sort of sci/ fi, alternate universe, where there was a Caveman Christ.

Caveman Christ. Now there's a comic I could get behind. Get on it, Metro!

Rejection Receives Recognition

Thanks to comedy superfan Rachel Kramer Bussel's sharp eyes*, I was alerted to this story. Some Associated Press reporters were at the performance of The Rejection Show I mentioned previously, the one that featured a short film by my old fake boss Sara Schaefer (in which I had an approximately 20-second cameo), and wrote up a piece about it.

It's a nice article, and it even comes with a little video you can check out.










*which you can witness, bespectacled, in the aforementioned video.

March Madness... or at least mild depression

For those of you who like to plan your calendar three weeks in advance, take note: I will be performing in Andres Du Bouchet & Co.'s fantastic variety show Giant Tuesday Night of Amazing Inventions and Also There is a Game on March the 7th, at 8:00 PM. I will be acting in a bit that I wrote, essaying the character of "Sarcastic Strawberry Vendor." Make of that what you will.

If you've never seen the show before, just know that it's one of the best and funniest comedy shows in the city, an opinion I held long before I got the chance to contribute anything to it.

The show is every Tuesday at Rififi/Cinema Classics 332 E. 11th St. (between 1st & 2nd Aves.)There is one drink minimum, but with $3 MGD on tap, I think you can swing it.

Finalist! The Sequel!

Another one of my TV spec scripts has (sort of) won an award.

My Simpsons spec, "Jesus Christ Superstation," was a semi-finalist in Scriptapalooza's TV writing competition, one of the largest of its kind. (This year they received a total of 806 scripts - 241 pilots, 230 1 hour episodics and 335 sitcoms.)

Mine was the only one of the finalists that was a Simpsons script. Some might say that this was because I was the only person dumb enough to spec for a more-than-ten-years-old show. I like to think that it's because I was the only person talented enough to put a new spin on a more-than-ten-years-old show. Y'know. We all tell ourselves lies to survive.

This is my second spec, and the second to (sort of) win an award. (The continuing parenthetical interjections seek to acknowledge that the question of whether or not being a finalist constitutes winning anything is debatable.) Two out of two ain't bad.

Now can someone hire me? Or at least get me a damn agent?

May I Remind You...

...that the always lovely Sara Schaefer will be screening a five-minute comedy short, with a cameo appearance by the always-lovely me, at tonight's Rejection Show.

That is all.

"Captains" Website is Live!

So, the website for Captains is up and running. There's currently not that much content there, since we haven't actually shot any of the episodes yet, but it's still pretty neat. Go to http://www.captainsinspace.com/ to check it out. You can read a little about the concept and get bios of the people involved, and the front page is a blog where (I'm just assuming, since Fed is the webmaster) production news will be updated as we progress.

One of the more exciting pieces of news is that Andrea Rosen will be appearing in Future Shock, one of the episodes I wrote. You may have seen her in a reoccuring role in the very funny Stella on Comedy Central, a show I hope will return for a second season, although perhaps it's been shunted off to make room for more episodes of "Distraction" or 12 hours of Mad TV reruns. You know... for kids.

Anyway, to sum up, here are the things that you'll be able to find on the Captains website as of now:

-A spiffy logo
-A series synopsis
-Gratuitous use of the word "space"
-An email address for you to spam
-A reference to a "sexy onboard computer"
-Bios of the cast, crew, and writers
-Including a bio of Devon T. Coleman which is funnier than the boilerplate bio I contributed. What's that guy's problem, anyway?
-A photo of me holding a martini and a cat

Things you won't be able to find on the Captains website:

-Nude photos of any of the above (aside from the aforementioned cat)
-Actual episodes of the show

But they're coming, friends! (Uh... the episodes, not the nude photos.) We hope by early March. Keep checking in.

Happy Groundhog Day!

If You're Bored of Me

It's not personal news, but I wanted to give a couple of plugs to some certified F.O.D.'s.

First off, if you're in NYC, you should pick up a copy of Metro, one of the many free dailies that accompany bored subway riders on their daily commutes. Why? (Other than the thrilling expose on how men want to sleep with Jessica Alba?) Because Elliot Kalan, associate producer on The Daily Show and host of The New Kalan Show (formerly "The Midnight Kalan," on which I had the pleasure of appearing, for the "Night of Stallone" show) is now contributing a weekly column. And today is the kick-off piece. According to insider sources (read: Elliott), the column should appear every Friday hereafter. So rejoice, commuters! Three minutes of your day just got a lot more interesting!

Also: what has Sara Schaefer been doing, since the shuttering of Sara Schaefer is Obsessed With You? She's been doing some solo performances around the city (the SSIOWY staff got together for a mini-reunion to enjoy her act at Variety Underground a couple of weeks ago). I'd like to highlight one particular performance: her upcoming appearance at The Rejection Show.

The Rejection Show
February 7th @ 8:30PM, $10
Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction
34 Avenue A (2nd and 3rd St.)
Tickets available in advance via Ticketweb.com or call or visit the Mo Pitkin's box office at (212) 777-5660
F or V to Second Ave.
Other people presenting rejections: Michael Showalter (Stella, The State, The Baxter), Peter Hyman (The Reluctant Metrosexual, Spin Magazine), and New Yorker Cartoonists!

Sara will be presenting a rejected Channel 102 pilot, which, as a bonus for the Whither Laffs reader, features about 30 seconds of me. See the music video where I took an ostensibly comedic pratfall, the scar from which I can still see on my shoulder.

Hooray for friends. Woo woo.

"Update, or: In Which I, Your Humble Host, Hit You Over the Head with a Four-by-Four"

As promised, here is the information about my appearance on Saturday:

Eric Zuckerman and I will be hosting 4x4, a series of four ten-minute comic plays (why that doesn't make it 4x10, god only knows), at the Gotham City Improv.

Cost: $10 (or $2.50/ play)
Time: Saturday, January 28, at 8:30 (length of show approx. 1 hour)
Location: 158 West 23rd St., 2F (above Monster Sushi)
Directions: Take the C. E, N, R, 1, 9 or F to 23rd Street then walk towards 7th Ave.

Mr. Z and I will be hosting as Caine and Hoskins-- meaning that I will be doing my inimitable Michael Caine impression and Zuckerman will be doing his incredible Bob Hoskins impression... which got me to thinking: have these two Cockeney acting titans ever done a movie together? And if not, some producer needs to get the two of them together IMMEDIATELY. It turns out that they have done one film together, Neil Jordan's 1986 British gangster-romance, "Mona Lisa." But they were hardly co-stars. I was thinking something more on the order of this:

CAINE.................... HOSKINS

in

LIMEYS!

Or, even better...

CAINE.................... HOSKINS

in

BLIMEY!

Could be great...

In the Bleak Midwinter

Well, it's been a while since I've updated this thing, and that's not because I've forgotten you, dear reader (how could I ever forget YOU?), but because there's not much that's been going on. I've allowed myself to succumb to post-holiday laziness. However, things should be picking up from here, and if you've been jonesing for some Dan-related comedy (which puts you in about the one-millionth of one percent of the population-- although, luckily, most of that percentage knows about this calendar/ blog), then you're in luck.

Yes, in my first performance since 2005, I will be appearing this Saturday evening from 8:30-9:30, co-hosting a slate of four ten-minute plays... the perfect length for a play, in my easily-distracted opinion. My partner in this endeavor will be one Mr. Eric Zuckerman, whom you may know as "Doomsday Guy" from the 4th highest-grossing film of the year*, War of the Worlds. That's right. I'll be sharing the stage with someone who has recieved valuable direction from Mr. Steven Spielberg himself-- direction that possibly included, "Look over there," and, "Louder."

I don't know all the details just yet (Mr. Z is running point on this operation and he has yet to apprise me of all the ins and outs) but I wanted to warn you immediately, in case you needed to clear your already sparse Saturday-evening calendar. As soon as I know all the salient information, I'll post it right here.

In other news, following my semi-award winning TV spec scripts that have completely failed to win me an agent as of yet, I've decided to write a screenplay. Just as soon as I, y'know... figure out how to do that.

Also, production is underway on multiple episodes of the video podcast "Captains," mentioned in the link bar to the right of your screen. It's a little comedy sci/fi series being put together by my friend Fed, his friend Adam, Mr. Devon T. Coleman, and yours truly. I'll give you more details as production progresses, but we're hoping that the first episode might be available by late February or early March, at which point the aforementioned link will become active, and the wealthy among you can enjoy our shenanigans via your video iPod, the middle class can enjoy our shenanigans via your computers' Quicktime video programs, and the poor can enjoy distorted re-tellings of our shenanigans while huddled around the Tang-cooler.

In other news, I am irredemably self-obsessed.

*According to the Entertainment Weekly I read on the subway this morning.

Please, Kill Me!

So I sent some pitches to MAD Magazine a while back, one of which they liked; and I did a little back and forth with them on a couple of drafts. Anyway, ultimately they decided that they didn't want to use the piece, but they liked what I'd done and wanted to give me something for my work, so they're going to pay me a $100 "kill fee." Cool. This is the first time I've been paid for writing something that didn't get published (well, that's not true-- I think Jest may have paid me for a piece that didn't get published because they folded before they could use it, but at least they intended to use it). Anyway, what a cool move on MAD Magazine's part. And I'm still hoping to write something sometime that they'll actually print, so stay tuned.

I was going to make a joke about never getting paid for nothing before... but, sadly, I'm familiar with the joys of unemployment checks. All things considered, I'd rather be paid to not get published.

A Note From the Church Basement Guys, About Tonight's Show

Hello All and Happy Holidays,

Cold weather getting you down? Sick and tired of all the crowds and shopping? Laid off from your job as a mall Santa and forced to choose between buying food and prescription medication? Us too. Well, there's only one cure for those holiday blues: Church Basement's Final Show of 2005/Holiday Extravaganza!! That's right, this Monday at Church Basement we'll be freaking bursting with cheer. We'll also be giving away cookies and candy canes. And the bar will be serving HOME MADE EGG NOG with.....FRESH NUTMEG! Plus, we'll have our usual lineup of stellar guests. This week we welcome:

Kurt Braunohler- Co-host of the wildly popular and critically acclaimed variety show Hot Tub, as well as the co-creator of the amazing guerrilla street theatre that is Chengwin.

We've also got Seth Herzog, downtown favorite and host of Sweet. You've also seen him on VH1, the TV show Stella, and the movies Prime and The Baxter. He'll rock you good.

And we're welcoming back Basement favorite Dan McCoy. A writer for Jest and NPR, Dan has been with us almost from the start and is actually more popular than the hosts.

And last only alphabetically, we're bringing you John Phillips, founding member of the Hi-larious sketch comedy group Trophy Dad and all around super guy.

All I can say is, "Wow." In fact, I can't say it. Much like Orthodox Jews who dare not utter the name of G_D, I fear that if I speak of this Basement out loud, its unimaginable power may very well strike me down.

But that's not all. As a special treat, Monday night's show will feature the return of everybody's favorite Robot Cater Waiter, Zeep Zorp singing a special holiday song with Matt Yeager on the guitar. And stick around after the show for more egg nog and all-around holiday carousing. It's gonna be a party. We'll see you Monday night at 8pm sharp.

Your Hosts,

Nick Higgins, Jack Kukoda, and Matt Yeager
--
http://www.churchbasement.com/

Church Basement Reading Series
@ Micky's Blue Room
Ave. C btw. 10th & 11th
8pm
Free!

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?

Breaking News Sure to Bring the Utmost Excitement!

I have just been tapped to contribute a bit to famed Daily Show production assistant Elliott Kalan's excellent unscripted late-night talk show The Midnight Kalan!

This will be the LAST Midnight Kalan at Juvie Hall before the theater shuts down for good.

What lies ahead for Elliott in the New Year? God only knows. Well, we do have some clues-- according to his website, there will be "coming in 2006: Elliott Kalan's Untitled Comedy Event Talk Show." Intriguing.

But that's in THE FUTURE. What does Elliott have on tap for the final show? Again, we consult the official word from his website:

"A NIGHT WITH STALLONE"

Midnight Kalan goes out with a Sylvester-Stallone-fueled bang!

December 16 at 12 AM.
Tickets ONLY $5, and each ticket entitles you to 1 slice of pizza and 8 oz. of soda.
24 Bond Street (Under the Gene Frankel Theater) (Between Bowery and Lafayette)

Can you afford to miss it?

The New Issue of Ducts is Online

The new issue of Ducts.org, the literary webzine edited by my friend and former comedy-team-mate, Jonathan Kravetz is now online. I edit the humor section, and would like to draw your attention, in particular, to the "Tribute to Spam," by the inimitable Andres Du Bouchet (of Giant Tuesday Night of Amazing Inventions and Also There Is a Game); "Movin' Out: The Rough Draft," by my partner in crime Rob Bates; and my own contribution, "Class Notes."

Also, if you poke around the rest of the 'zine, you can see illustrations by yours truly, that run the gamut from competent to passable. Yay!

Grand Falls Community Council, Friday the 16th at 8 PM, Juvie Hall

I have a small part in a one-night-only comedy show that the lovely Laura Buchholtz has written and is producing/ directing, called "The Grand Falls Community Council." Come see it at Juvie Hall on Friday the 16th at 8 PM, for a mere $7. Come out to the theater at 24 Bond Street between Bowery and Lafayette for some special limited-edition comedy before the holidays.

Edited 12/ 10 to reflect Laura's helpful update.