Moldy Bagels Episode One (Part Three)

And here we reach the third and final section of the show. The first bit with Mr. Happy on the phone getting kinda sucks. The writing is weak, and I lied before when I said that none of the episode is cringe-worthy, because this part definitely fits the bill. I didn't think it would be painfully obvious at the time I was filming, but I was wrong, because it's really blatant that I'm reading from a script in my lap. I thought it wouldn't be a problem since my eyes go all over the place, but they fixate on my crotch long enough and often enough that the reading is unmistakable.

The bit where I bring out the chart to document my laziness (And the measurement is accurate. Just look at how often I update this blog) is fun although it runs longer than I'd like. My real regret here is how stupid I look for making the joke about Cincinnati sports teams. The Reds are still one of the worst teams in baseball, but this was clearly a bad time to make this joke since as I write this the Bengals are 7-2 with a two-game division lead, and the University of Cincinnati Bearcats football team is more than likely on its way to a BCS bowl. At least I didn't fuck up the continuity with the insert shots.

I wanted to finish strong so I ended with the Boardwalk Hotel sketch. I didn't realize that my head is clearly visible in the bottom right corner of the first shot of the hat, but I'm not sweating it. I always thought this was the second or third best Ron Mexico sketch I made, so I opted to bust it out here. This is the third time I've done this sketch, so anything I'd have to say about it I've already said two years ago. I guess I'll just end by saying that my girlfriend throws a pretty damn accurate hat. The credits show her missing the first four or five times, but the thing was so fucking light and floaty that it's a miracle we got that shot so fast.

Moldy Bagels Episode One (Part Two)

In this second part we start off with a sketch about porn titles. I don't know why I have such a lifelong fascination that borders on fixation on porn titles, but as god as my witness, this is the last fucking time I'll create a piece of comedy centered around the subject. Maybe I enjoy the subject so much because porn titles are easy to come up with, and rolling off a dozen of them is a great way to feel clever without actually being so. Either way, this bit has some good ideas, but it runs too long and doesn't take off as much as it should.

I like the steak sauce cartoon that follows. As a slave in the food service industry, steak sauce is a subject that's very close to my heart. Steaks that aren't treated properly make me sad. Why somebody would pay well over $20 for a quality ribeye only to order it well done and drown it in steak sauce makes no sense to me. It's like paying $5 million to have sex with Jessica Alba and putting a paper bag over her head while you do it.

I also like the bit because it's the first time that I felt like I literally built a set using MS Paint. I took a rooftop view of the Chicago river, I put a window in front of it, and I put the projector screen that the consultant uses in front of that. I know this is basic shit to you fancy boys with your Harvard degrees and McCafe coffee, but I'm proud that I taught myself how to do something. Fuck you.

Moldy Bagels: Episode 1 (Part One)

I'll go ahead and throw this up since I haven't updated this thing in months. This is part one of my new public access show that will be premiering in the Northern Kentucky area Tuesday of next week:



I've been talking about putting together a public access show for literally a year now, and I finally got around to it a few weeks ago. After months and months of dicking around and doing next to nothing in the way of creative output, I bought a bitchin' Sony Handicam for $350, wrote up a 15-page sketch comedy script that was about 30% old Ron Mexico and Crapstick Doodle material, and 70% new stuff, and got to it.

What you may notice first and foremost is that I am the only person who appears onscreen, and my voice is the only one you hear. This isn't a deliberate creative choice or done purely out of arrogance so much as it's the inevitable result of not having any friends. Maybe only having myself onscreen will work and be enough to sustain six episodes a year or however many I end up making. Hey, it worked for Andy Milonakis. Okay, well, it didn't exactly work for him because he fucking sucks and his show wasn't funny, but it did get him a job, and that's certainly something.

Comedically I think the show has some moments, although it's clearly rough around the edges. The writing could use a certain degree of polish, and let's face it: anything that stars me is going to leave a lot to be desired in the acting department. However, one area where I'm quite pleased is with the technical stuff. Although I thought most of my Ron Mexico sketches were funny, whenever I rewatch them there's always some serious technical issue or acting gaffe that makes me cringe. Sometimes I fucked up with editing and left a blatant continuity error, maybe I included a line that an actor flubbed, sometimes I forgot to shoot some footage that I needed and I had to use clever editing to finish the job (Fuck if you think I was going to wait a day for the equipment rental desk to open back up and do an hour and a half of extra work to get the footage the next day) and every video has at least one instance of the sound being so fucked up that you can barely hear what the actor says.

I didn't sense any of that in this video. The greenscreen effect when I play Mr. Happy is a little wonky but other than that, I'm pleased with how this one comes together from a technical standpoint. I attribute it to my new camera, which offers little to no shooting options. In that sense it's completely retard-proof. With the PD-150 cameras I used in college you could adjust shutter speed, white balance, gain, aperture, stereo and mono sound, and about a million other audio and video options that gave visually creative students a full range of opportunities to bring their wonderful stories to life, and it also gave untalented idiots like me every opportunity possible to fuck up and create totally unwatchable dogshit. With my dumbass-approved camera, all you do is point and shoot and the camera will make it look pretty okay for you.

I don't really have any interesting stories about the actual making of the show since I shot it completely alone and editing was a ridiculously simple process. I did three takes of each line, threw it into the computer, picked the best take, and that was about it. The only problem I had while shooting was when I cooked a pizza while knocking out a couple lines and the oven timer going off ruined one of my takes. I guess it would also classify as a problem that I intended for the show to only be 15 minutes long and ended up with 22 and a half, but that's mostly because I didn't account for all the time that transitions and credit sequences would add.

Whoopee, that's it! Stay tuned for part 2. Or just go to www.youtube.com/crapstickdoodle if you want to be all fancy about it.