Del Close Marathon

The Match Game 76 is one of the highlights of the Del Close Marathon. I was at this riot, and intend on being there again - if I can get in.

Please note: NSFW

On Line at UCB

Last weekend's DCM was a jammed packed three days. After going through my photos and thinking back on the moments and the faces of so many UCB devotees, something occurred to me. There were stories. Stories everywhere. It was not just the amazing yarns told by audience members or performers, it was the stories and snippets of conversations I heard waiting in line. And you wait in line at UCB's DCM. You wait a lot.

There were the UCB students, young fresh faced, baking in the sun, some protecting themselves from the heat under umbrellas. One young twenty-something, I'll call her Karen (since the sun was making me delirious and I'm bad with names) was in Improv 401. She came from Florida by herself just to study at UCB. Through her classes, she found a family. "You have to make friends. " She said. "You have to go out and find a community of people or else you'll be really lonely here."

Other line dwellers were performers invited to trod the UCB stage, but may have been a day or two early for their show, chomping at the bit to get in to see Facebook or Bass-Prov. They talked about driving in a hot bus from the mid-west, or stuffing their junk in a car and heading for New York before dawn the day before. They goofed on fellow performers by cell phone who hadn't made it yet because they were stuck in traffic.

While on line at FIT, I met Robert, a Los Angeles native and UCB intern who was my seat buddy for the weekend, saving my space in line while I got my tickets for the various shows at the Kate Murphy Theater. One evening, while sitting on a sidewalk caked with the crap of the world, he said, "I don't mean to be a jerk, but..."

What?"

But...does New York always have that... smell?"

Oh, poor LA dude, I thought. You don't know the half of it. The humidity. The sewer swamp vapor rising from drain pipes. Piss. Puke. Garbage. Exhaust fumes. Cigarette smoke. Hobo smells. Body odor. Tourists. Tourists...everywhere with their synthetic fibers.

"Yes. Oh yes it does. In the summer. All the time."

Then I met Sarah. Like Karen, she was in her early twenties, and an Improv 401 student. Waiting to get into Respecto Mantalban, we laughed at the idea that urine may have been dispensed on the very wall in which we were leaning. Living out of her small canvas bag, silk screened with last year's Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival logo, she spoke of her day job as a medical librarian at Sloan Kettering. Sarah loved puppetry and not only studied the Harold at UCB, but also took puppet improv workshops.

Why did she get into improv? "I always loved comedy." She said. Then her eyes welled up. "I lost my younger sister a few years ago. So, since I'd always been a comedy fan, I escaped from the despair by taking classes at UCB and losing myself in comedy. When you hear them laugh at your work, it's addicting. It makes me forget the pain".

Del Close Marathon 2009 - Saturday

It was a late night last night, and I'm word weary and without my thesaurus. The Del Close Marathon will end tonight, and I am so jazzed from seeing the All Stars of UCB up close and hilarious. After an afternoon of performances by eager, fresh faced improv groups (it ranged from curious to boring to finding some individual stand outs), I headed over to FIT for Scheer-McBrayer. Two of the funniest guys around playing Harold games and killing. (Did Jack know what he was in for later that night?)

Went back to UCB. Got in for The Benson Interruption. Twice in one week for me. Couldn't get photos because I was standing within walls of human flesh with just enough view to see. I knew Sarah Silverman was a guest (she appeared in Seth and Ed's Puppet Show previous). Also in the line up was Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer. The Interruption never EVER disappoints. It was incredible. What I didn't know was this was the start of the comedy version of the Midnight Ramble. As Levon Helms once said of the rock and roll version, and I'm paraphrasing, " The songs got raunchier and the prettiest girls would really shake it a few times."

After The Smartest Panels of Experts with Matt Besser as Host to a line up of misfits who answered probing questions, and the tremendous Cracked Out, along came this...
...The Match Game. This was like the last scene (although this wasn't the last of anything for DCM) in The Last Waltz (why do I keep using that film as a metaphor for this?) when Joni, Van, Bob, Robbie, Neil Young, Neil Diamond...everyone came on stage and sang "I Shall Be Released"...but this was the All Star lineup at UCB, playing the Match Game with Host Scheer as Gene Rayburn and contestant Jack McBrayer who got TRASHED by everyone. The multi-star line up was Sarah Silverman as Carl Weathers, Morgan Vukovic Walsh (who I met earlier and is so sweet) as Hot Lips Hoolihan, Matt Walsh as Van Morrison, Benson as Don Ho, Brett Gelman as somebody, Nick Kroll as another guy I can't remember because I was dieing... there was Flipper, the mentally retarded guy from Deliverance, Huebel as a majorly pissed John McEnroe and so many others...so many. So good.

It was absolute hilarious, fucking funny, oh-my-GOD I will never EVER be the same after Seth Morris pulled down his loin cloth MAYHEM, hilarious. I'm speechless. Here are my blurry pictures...

Deliverance Guy gives his answer...

John McEnroe takes his anger out on Jack - who everyone is mock hating - with his tennis balls.

On to a whole afternoon at UCB ending with Assscat 3000 tonight.

Del Close Marathon 2009

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The Benson Interruption

With the Del Close Marathon about to hit the ground running this weekend at Upright Citizen's Brigade in New York, I kick started my participation as a fan by attending The Benson Interruption last night. This show is an uber popular UCB ticket. Comedian Doug Benson produces an hour-plus line up of comedian friends invited on stage to work out new jokes while he sits front row center interrupting with banter. It is beyond hilarious. The additional beauty is - the line up of comedians is a surprise, and like a box of chocolates, you never know...

Benson not only hosts Interruption, but also heads up another fave UCB show Doug Loves Movies. (It's podcasted and available on iTunes). Yes, Doug does love movies. A lot. This show brings comedy friends together to discuss the latest in cinema whether awesome or crap. Sometimes the crappy-er the better.

And Doug loves weed. It's part of his life. Inspired by his love of the stuff, and his love of film, Benson created and starred in Super High Me, a take off of Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary Super Size Me. Instead of eating mass quantities of bad ass portions of McDonalds all day every day for a month like Spurlock, Benson smoked weed each day for thirty days. It turned out that unlike Spurlock, Doug was actually pretty healthy after one month of indica inhalation. The movie also touched upon the marijuana culture in California and some political views about its legalization.

Back to last night's Interruption. The line up was Ali Wong, Moshe Kasher and Anthony Jeselnik, all funny young comedians we'll be hearing more about in years to come.

Nick Kroll and Paul F. Tomkins showed up, and I think I lost my mind. I love them as much as you can platonically love a person.

Kroll (Caveman, Bar Mitzvah Disco, Children's Hospital) is a solid stand up and comedic actor with a line up of characters such as Fabreze Fabreze and the second half of Gil and George in the Oh Hello Show, which he co-stars alongside John Mulaney( seen in video below) on stage.



Up until recently, Paul F. Tomkins was the host of VH1's Best Week Ever, which has gone into a slumbering hiatus. Tomkins himself is uncertain of when it will return and if he'll be hosting. He was a cast member of Mr. Show, he is the dapper be-suited headliner at Largo and UCB. Back in December, I attended the annual Aimee Mann Christmas Show where he directed the comedic happenings. It was a blast to see the Benson/Tomkins give and take at last night's Interruption.

Here's Tomkins and Andy Richter in a funny Best Week Ever bit:



The photo of Doug Benson above is the cover of his new album Unbalanced Load, available for download on iTunes.