Monthly Archives: June 2013

JINGLES: Obsessed Ep 29

Jingles! Kevin Murphy (Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax writer/performer and author of A Year at the Movies) is not only obsessed with jingles, he is a human YouTube designed for jingle playback. Joseph and returning favorite Sam Landman (winner of our Sidekick Challenge episode) delight in Kevin’s encyclopedic knowledge of commercial jingles for beer, butter, meat, dog food, sun tan lotion, a creepy board game called Mystery Date, and more. Kevin also performs the Oscar Meyer bologna song as Tom Waits and invents new jingles to advertise the cloud, LinkedIn, PRISM, and himself! WARNING: This episode is delightful and your ears will get wormed. Enjoy!

AWOOGA! Obsessed is now a part of Feral Audio! Go to Feral now to listen to this episode and subscribe for new ones!

Listen, rate, review, and subscribe to OBSESSED on iTunes.

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FLAWS and UNICORNS

FINAL UPDATE AT THE TOP BECAUSE IT’S IMPORTANT: Flaw Fest is funded. Live comedy shows, a new comedy album, an album of original songs by amazing musicians will all exist. Because you funded, you increased your funding, you promoted, you snorted hope-coke and flew like unicorns. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read below. The context will help a little tiny bit. There are no more words for it than: Thanks, unicorns.

Flaw Fest is a comedy show about all my flaws as a human being. Well, not all of them. The greatest hits of my horrible human flaws.

I performed the show in February of 2013 on Jonathan Coulton’s JoCoCruiseCrazy. You can read about the cruise experience here.

The show went very well. One of the conversations that came up on the cruise was how comedians, musicians, and artists in general generate new material.

The cruise left me thinking about creating new work and about how comedy and music interact.

I came up with the idea of not only recording the comedy show, but asking a bunch of my musician friends to write an album of original songs inspired by the comedy show.

The result is this kickstarter campaign called FLAW FEST.

The campaign ends this Friday, June 21st at 12:27 CDT. We’re pretty far from our goal of $26,007.

The goal is quite high.

Over half of the money is going to the musicians because I wanted them to be paid well for taking the time to write and record new songs. The rest of the money is going toward renting the theater, paying for rewards, and hiring pros to get a very high quality recording of the comedy show.

I knew the goal was quite high when I set it, but (as I joke about in the show) my flaws include being stubborn and, at times, foolishly optimistic.

The progress on the funding has been uneven. There have been some great things. The Kickstarter staff selected it as a Staff Pick and featured FLAW FEST on their home page as a Project of the Day. Still, some days, it’s lumbered along like a wounded buffalo. Other days, it’s raced forward like a crazy little squirrel hopped up on pixie stix.

If there’s any hope of making its goal by Friday, the funding will need to fly like a horde of unicorns jacked up on coke.

While the goal is still frustratingly far away, I know two things:

1) No one owes me anything. If you think the project looks interesting, I’m thrilled. If not, that’s fine, too. Not every project that sounds exciting to creators is going to find the right audience or a large enough audience to share that excitement. That’s just part of being a creative type.

2) The fans who have supported this project have supported the LIVING HELL OUT OF IT. Many people have increased their pledges, plugged the project, and sent kind words of encouragement. Many thanks to all the squirrel people hopped up on pixie stix who have given this project its forward movement.

Bottom line, I know the goal is quite high. I know the deadline is very close. But I’m going to be foolishly optimistic and ask you a favor:

If you think the project sounds exciting, please fund at whatever level you can. Please tell your friends who might be interested. Please be a unicorn. Strap on some wings, do a few lines of hope-coke with me and fly, fly, fly.

Or just enjoy the concept of drug addled fictional creatures. That’s appreciated, too.

Many thanks from a flawed creative type–
Joseph

UPDATE: As of this writing, we have 24 hours left to fund FLAW FEST. Many of you have answered THE CALL OF THE HOPEFUL UNICORN and I deeply appreciate it. Thanks to you we’ve moved much closer to the goal and we’re now tantalizingly close to making this idea a reality. Keep flying, unicorns, keep snorting and flying. We’re almost there. Thank you.

UPDATE UPDATE: As of this writing, we have 4 hours left. Everyone who watches the TV show 24 knows that’s when THE EXCITING AND EXTRA RIDICULOUS THINGS HAPPEN. You hope-coked unicorns have been flying like crazy. We also got a nice plug from Jonathan Coulton and Greg Pak via their great graphic novel and music kickstarter. We saw a huge surge last night because of all that work. Just a few more hours and a few more dollars. Keep flying and thank you for helping FLAW FEST get this close to being a reality.

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SQUIRRELS and STREETCARS: Obsessed Ep 28

Squirrels and streetcars! Two obsessions that go great together in this podcast! Recorded live at the sci-fi/fantasy convention CoreCon, Joseph drew two random guests and got a married couple! Therapist Sherry Merriam is obsessed, like Joseph, with squirrels and author Michael Merriam is obsessed with streetcars. Topics include squirrel underwear, Hitler’s listening skills, sex on Tuesday at 8:45, and the similarities between public transportation and the Fellowship of the Ring. There’s some fuzz on the mics from a fast set-up at a con. Such is the challenge of live podcasting! Enjoy!

AWOOGA! Obsessed is now a part of Feral Audio! Go to Feral now to listen to this episode and subscribe for new ones!

Listen, rate, review, and subscribe to OBSESSED on iTunes.

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A Man and His Affirmation Tweets

For the past several months I’ve been doing a series of daily tweets. First tacos, then monkeys, and now daily affirmations. If you need a little something to put it all in perspective here’s 31 cranky jokes about feel-good aphorisms!

Enjoy! You can also follow me on Twitter to enjoy June’s series of Daily Etiquette Tweets.

Day One: You are almost good enough. And that’s almost okay.

Day Two: Dance like no one is willing to watch.

Day Three: You are like a comma. People put you in weird places and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Day Four: There are no limits in life. I would elaborate but I only have 140 characters for this tweet.

Day Five: Don’t lower your goals. Raise your denial.

Day Six: We all create our own demons. Gain peace by making yours with construction paper, macaroni, and glue. No sniffing.

Day Seven: A fart is just the contented sigh of a well-fed soul.

Day Eight: Fall like no one will catch you.

Day Nine: Tweet with abandon; with love; with misused semi-colons; that will piss people; off.

Day Ten: A midday nap is a peaceful, natural way to tell the world, “I have no intention of answering your fucking emails.”

Day Eleven: Knowledge is power. Hammers are tools. Words are things. Cheetos aren’t food. Breathe. Believe. Don’t eat Cheetos.

Day Twelve: Approach life like a child. Like a screaming, exhausted monster with a partially developed brain.

Day Thirteen: Maybe don’t just stare at the abyss. Talk to it. Hug it. Rub the abyss’ feet. You get out what you put in.

Day Fourteen: ALWAYS BE DOING YOGA.

Day Fifteen: You have two middle fingers. This is nature’s way of reminding you to only be pissed off at two people at a time.

Day Sixteen: Sometimes that silver stuff lining the inside of your cloud is asbestos.

Day Seventeen: We are all winners. Except people who insist that we are all winners. They are trying too hard.

Day Eighteen: Don’t yell AT yourself, yell WITH yourself.

Day Nineteen: Your brain eats ideas. A healthy mind keeps the good parts and poops out the excess on social media.

Day Twenty: Look at the stars. Reflect on how small you are. If you already feel small, FOR FUCK’S SAKE DON’T LOOK AT THE STARS!

Day Twenty-One: Dress up like a bird. Spread your wings. Don’t jump off anything. You can’t fly and you look stupid.

Day Twenty-Two: Life is like an analogy about life. It makes sense when you are drunkenly explaining it to your friend at 2 am.

Day Twenty-Three: Give a TED talk like no one will link to it.

Day Twenty-Four: Receive your potential. Inbox your doubt. Target your now. Ride your hope. Move your donkey. I have aphasia.

Day Twenty-Five: Remember: you are not alone. There are people everywhere. They’re watching and judging. Always. 🙂

Day Twenty-Six: It’s important to nurture your inner adult. Do some laundry and stop eating cheese over the sink, for fuck’s sake.

Day Twenty-Seven: There is no one else in the world exactly like you and that’s okay. It’s great. A relief, actually.

Day Twenty-Eight: If at first you don’t succeed try, try one more time. Then just bitch about it on Facebook.

Day Twenty-Nine: Peace is a breath onto the wind of a soaring dolphin’s song of wings that blow in a waving field of bullshit.

Day Thirty: Post like no one will comment.

Day Thirty-One: Always remember: A trite saying a day will keep reality at bay.

Affirmatively,

Joseph

If you enjoy my work, you can sign up for my fan list here and make more comedy possible by buying a book, a comedy album, or a script here.

 

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