New York and the tri-state area, provided you like longform improv in strange locations at all hours of the day and night (raise your hand, dickhead who doesn’t), have I got a treat for you. This weekend all over the borough of Manhattan, the Upright Citizens Brigade presents the Del Close Marathon!
The Del Close Marathon is a weekend-long celebration of . . . aw hell, I’ll just show you this promotional video:
Okay, that didn’t help at all. DCM is a giant improv festival held in New York each year celebrating the founder of longform improvisation Del Close and featuring the best and brightest from the UCB theaters in New York and LA. Many of your favorite stars from film and TV got their starts at this theater and at this festival and many of them will be returning to join in the celebration alongside some of the future stars of those very same media. It’s a great time and if I was on the East Coast I would sure as shit be there.
I’ve been told $25 will secure you a pass to all the festivities, or you can but tickets to individual shows if you’re just looking for a taste. Many of our friends including Convoy, Arts & Athletics, Fat Magic Bear, The Midnight Show, DERRICK Comedy, and many others will be performing shows that could otherwise only be seen in Los Angeles. I encourage you to get a glimpse of the other coast, though don’t sleep on the New York teams either. Here’s a schedule of the 150+ performances between Friday and Sunday.
Let me take a minute now to speak to some of the performers; friends of mine who will be doing dunken, unconscionable for the next 96 hours:
To all my drunk female friends, put down that dick. It’s not a champagne bottle and you won’t like what comes bubbling out when you pop the cork.
To all my drunk, gay-curious male friends, don’t even think about doing that with that champagne bottle. It’s not a dick, and you won’t like what comes shooting out when you put it in your ass.
To all my gay, fabulous friends . . . You do you, guys. This is like Improv Mardi Gras. I encourage you to fuck all the straight guys.
My name is Ben and what happens at DCM stays at DCM untul it’s brought back from DCM and told to everyone.
For over a year now I’ve been taunting you with this funny flick called MYSTERY TEAM, the feature-film from DERRICK Comedy that I told you was hilarious but which most of you never got to see. Well, as much as I love taunting you, all good things must end. Occasionally, though, when a good thing ends an even better things takes its place, and that’s the case today: MYSTERY TEAM is available on DVD and Video On Demand for all the taunted world to see. Amazon, Netflix, Blockbuster, Roscoe’s Bootlegged DVDs; anywhere you get your movies, MYSTERY TEAM is there. No longer will you be the victim of movie bullies.
WARNING: THIS DVD CONTAINS AWESOME BONUS FEATURES SUCH AS:
Audio commentary with Derrick Comedy: Dan Eckman, Meggie McFadden, Dominic Dierkes, Donald Glover and DC Pierson
“The Making of Mystery Team” Featurette
Deleted Material
Preproduction Test Scene
“Who Is Wally Cummings?” Featurette
If any of those features frighten you please avoid this DVD. And this blog. And this life. Pussy.
To celebrate this big day here is the latest online sketch from DERRICK.
No one could’ve guessed when this sketch was shot that it would be exactly, word for word, the LOST Finale. Great minds think alike, yo. All you great minds out there thinking right now would be a lovely time for a pudding snack, I’m with youz. Meet you back here in five for MYSTERY TEAM.
Actor/comedian/writer/musician Donald Glover is a tough man to pigeon-hole. First of all, he’s spent his entire life not quite fitting into any category. Secondly, c’mon, he’s an ACTOR, COMEDIAN, WRITER AND MUSICIAN! And third, and possibly of greatest importance. . .What the hell is a pigeon hole?
In one of history’s biggest understatements . . . It’s a busy time to be Donald Glover. Let’s use this week as an example: Tonight, you can watch Donald Glover the actor as Troy, the emotionally-evolving ex-star football player on NBC’s “Community” (Thursdays, 8pm). Or, if you’re in Los Angeles, you can pop over to the NuArt Theatre for one of the final few screenings of “Mystery Team”, the feature debut from DERRICK Comedy, featuring Donald the actor, writer, and musician. Then on Friday (March 19) at 11pm you can catch the premiere of Donald the comedian’s “Comedy Central Presents” on, you guessed it, Comedy Central. On Saturday you will likely find Donald the musician, aka Childish Gambino, in his home recording studio putting the finishing touches on the rap album “Culdesac”, his follow-up to the Mixtape series and surprise sensation “I Am Just A Rapper”. On Sunday, God willing, he’ll rest. (Until Sunday night when he performs with the improv group Shitty Jobs at UCB-LA.)
All this from a guy who claims he doesn’t know how to multi-task!
While success is coming on strong, it is not entirely new for Glover, who got his “big break” as a staff writer on NBC’s “30 Rock” after spending his college years (NYU) dominating the internet with the previously-mentioned DERRICK Comedy. Poop or Chocolate’s Ben Axelrad got the fast-paced, fast-rising man-of-many-hats to slow down long enough to discuss where he’s been, where he’s at, and where he’s going. And also, all those hats.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Let’s start with some Childish Gambino questions since everyone prefers talking about their hobbies over work. Your “I Am Just A Rapper” (IAJAR) mixtapes have received widespread positive feedback for their synthesis of original rap music and preexisting indie rock songs. What inspired the idea?
First of all, I was surprised nobody had ever done this before. Indie kids love Jay-Z and The Clipse and Kid Cudi and stuff like that. And I feel like there are a million black kids who listen to indie music, but I know, for me, I was afraid to say I do. Rap is such a club culture now. Electronica and rap have kind of merged into each other because you’ve got this music that’s totally instrumental and syncopated and guys can rap over this loop that people can dance to in the club. And I like that music, but I think it was a problem for a lot of indie kids. They would say, like, “Oh, that MIA song is such a rip from The Clash,” so okay, let’s make one that’s totally The Clash. Let’s make one that has original guitars and drums and stuff that you’re used to hearing in indie music, rap over it and see how you feel. But I also didn’t want to make songs where the drums come in like boom-boom-chk, boom-boom-chk, like Korn or Limp Bizkit, and it’s the obvious “rock-rap” song. I listen to St. Vincent and stuff like that and some songs have no drums at all and the organ is the percussion. Or some songs will be like tom-tom-tom and no snare. Or maybe there’s a clap; or the tambourine is the snare. And there hadn’t been that exploration in rap yet. That’s what got me excited. There had never been a song where it was just a flute coming in like flute-flute-flute, and that becomes the percussion and you rap over it. It’s really cool.
The IAJAR Mixtapes are definitely your most open and revealing albums to date. Were you conscious of that as you made them?
Somewhat, yeah. I realized I was hiding behind things on the earlier albums, whether it be bravado and swagger or choosing an arbitrary thing like pink hoodies to be my “thing.” So on “IAJAR” I decided I would be my “thing.” I’d just do it straight and rap about things I care about. I like clothes; I’ll sing about clothes. People think I’m a weirdo; I’ll call myself a weirdo. And not to sound like the plot to “The Blind Side”, but the more I was me the better it went. And the more I was me the more I wouldn’t blend into the crowd. This culture niche that I am a part of is starving for hip-hop that is cool, but also self-aware. And when you’re open and let people see all of you the best stuff comes out. Like that John Mayer Playboy thing, I don’t think that was him. He was trying to sound witty and smart and cool. And the thing is, if you’re witty and smart and cool you’ll come off as witty and smart and cool just talking about whatever. But more than anything, the more truthful you are the more people tend to like you. Unless you’re a horrible person. And even that’s charming sometimes, because they usually don’t try to hide it. I don’t get it when people try to sound cool. The best shit comes out when you sound geekiest. Thus “I Am Just A Rapper”.
