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.