Here’s the interview I did with Coree Spencer for Pop Rock Candy Mountain during Bridgetown. After this she offered me a ride in her van. I was excited until I found out it was just a car.
Comedian on Comedian: Kevin Wilson
Posted in Friendshipwreck, if you see this you are a winner with tags Bridgetown Comedy, Stand up on July 6, 2009 by kjwilsonMerlin Mann on Doing Creative Work
Posted in a sassy way with tags Humor, Inspiration on June 20, 2009 by kjwilsonFrom The Sound of Young America:
Merlin Mann talks about the process of doing creative work, and particularly how to abandon the quest for perfection, get off your butt and get started.
June 27th is for Favorite Show
Posted in if you see this you are a winner with tags Favorite Show, Friends, My Shows on June 10, 2009 by kjwilson
Another Favorite Show is coming up. Here’s the details:
Favorite Show, Portland’s upstart multimedia comedy night, puts on the sunhats and breaks out the bejeweled bikini with a new show fit for the summer. Cinema Queso arrives with new video material for your eyeball pleasure. Your eyes won’t have to do all the heavy lifting because Katie Jean Arnold is ready to soothe you with music, make you laugh, then soothe you again. Then we have Kevin Wilson, ready to provide the audience with an illustrated story. Will it be dirty? Probably. I mean, come find out! I heard someone whining in the back. You already heard these names before? Well then how about comedian Whitney Streed, a welcomed new addition to Favorite Show. We’ve been working out all winter. Why not come admire our comedy tan?
Urban Grind, 2214 NE Oregon 503-546-0649, $5, Sat Mar 28th, doors @ 8.00pm
All the details your heart desires and more can be found at the Favorite Show website.
The Making of Zach Galifianakis on NYTimes.com
Posted in a sassy way with tags Alternative Comedy, Trickster on June 3, 2009 by kjwilsonThere’s a great article about Zach up right now. Here’s a few of my favorite quotes:
Galifianakis looked out at the crowd as the trio played on, beaming as childishly as anyone else in the room. He appeared to have forgotten, along with the audience, that he was the featured performer of the evening. “That’s not really a joke,” a 30ish man just in front of me observed to the woman beside him. She nodded at him and kept laughing.
This one about how he felt after the end of his VH1 show:
“When you go from having your own talk show to doing stand-up in a bowling alley,” he said finally, “you can react by getting mad or depressed, or by just going away, like people expect you to.” He took in a slow, thoughtful breath. “I reacted by growing my beard.”
About his racist jokes:
“It’s not a selfless thing,” he told me. “Wherever there’s something that people don’t feel comfortable talking about, that’s where the good jokes are. People might misunderstand you, but I decided, right after my show was canceled, never to dumb my material down for anybody. A bad comic follows his audience, catering to whatever they want; a good comic will always lead.”
About harvesting the awkwardness of his audience:
When I asked whether setting up the audience that way was satisfying for a comic — revenge, of a kind, for being misunderstood — Galifianakis surprised me by shaking his head soberly. “That’s one of the great things about comedy: we can — and should — say the things that other people aren’t supposed to say. If we didn’t do that, if we didn’t push against those limits, we’d just be standing around onstage and yelling.”
Maria Bamford: “Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome”
Posted in if you see this you are a winner with tags Alternative Comedy, Maria Bamford, Review on May 27, 2009 by kjwilsonMaria Bamford has a new album out called “Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome”. It’s been two years since “How to Win“, and a lot has happened since then. Comedians of Comedy, appearances on Tim & Eric, a lot of touring, and the ability to see through time. One of these is not true.
I ordered her album off of Amazon for two reasons: I loved “How to Win” and she told me in an email that The Maria Bamford Show came with it. All of the Maria Bamford Show on a single DVD. Have you not seen it? Watch an episode. I’ll wait.
There. Feel better? I do.
The show’s amazing and I’m really honored that she allows me to show it at Favorite Show.
Onto the album. Maria Bamford is a performer of a more personal style of stand up. This album has a longer bit at the end about her OCD and how she deals with it. That’s where the title of the album comes from. She relates all of her personal experience with it in a very healthy way.
It’s a hard thing to do when you discuss your personal life on stage, since you can sometimes drop off the deep end and make your performance a giant journal entry. Maria tempers it with voice work, exaggerations, and sharp observations that you may not notice right away. Notice them.
A lot of people try to pin her as a lady with crazy voices, but I’m not sold on that. Her voice work is subtle. Which is great because you don’t end up getting the feeling that she’s using you as practice for a part. She uses different voices as a way of augmenting her thoughts, mixing things up so your ear doesn’t get bored.
The flow of the album is very organic: she performs in the style that she probably thinks. Some thoughts may come out of nowhere, but like Eddie Izzard, this is how her mind works. This keeps you from getting bored and also allows her the freedom to discuss what she wants to. But she keeps in mind that she’s performing for others, and makes what she does very open, funny, and accessible. This is incredibly important and why I enjoy her so much.
“Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome” has a lot of accessibility. There’s a lot of original material mixed in with variations of her older work. A great bit about a pug training program and her impression of god. The repetition from previous albums may grate on some people who don’t like to hear anything but new jokes. If you are one of those kind of people, what’s your problem? Can’t you enjoy something two times?
Hearing different versions of a single joke is part of the process of comedy. Even when you deliver a joke in the exact way you think works best, it can get stale and then become the exact wrong way of doing it. Her material has always been about family/social/romantic relationships and exposing the inner workings.
I like it when Maria goes off the deep end and allows herself to take the audience along with her on a ride. In particular, she has a section involving a tour of the world that she illustrates with her hands. It combines her world observations with voice work and comes together real well.
If nothing else you have to listen to the first track that contains her “Atheist Channel” bit. It’s amazing.
The album can be purchased at retail stores, as well as iTunes, or get a personalized copy from her website.
If nothing else you have to listen to the first track that contains her “Atheist Channel” bit. It’s amazing.
Greed is an excuse by Douglas Rushkoff
Posted in if you see this you are a winner with tags Culture on May 20, 2009 by kjwilsonFound an interesting article on greed and the human nature on BoingBoing a little bit ago by Douglas Rushkoff.
My favorite tidbit:
We shouldn’t be too shocked that the industrial world’s intellectuals would be so prone to perceive humanity as driven by instinctual, self- interested violence. This behavior is as old as colonialism itself, and calls to mind wealthy plantation owners arguing that Africans were better equipped anatomically–by the Maker or by evolution– to pick cotton. Today’s equivalent, however well masked in scientific jargon, is no better supported by the facts. As a cultural mythology, however, it helps assuage any residual guilt the rich might feel over the inequitable distribution of wealth built into the existing economic order.
Or perhaps the wealthy obsess over what they hope is an entirely dog- eat- dog reality because their participation in the culture of money hasn’t ended up making them any happier. According to a study conducted at the height of the market, 23 percent of brokers and traders at the seven largest firms on Wall Street suffered from depression–more than three times the national average. Scientists and United Nations sociologists alike have concluded that affluence produces rapidly diminishing returns on happiness. After achieving an income per capita of about $15,000, any increase in wealth makes little difference to a nation’s total happiness metrics.
The rest of it is here.
Scratch PDX
Posted in a terrible looking suit with tags My Shows on May 14, 2009 by kjwilsonThis is just in case you haven’t noticed the huge image on the right.
On Saturday, May 16th, I will be performing at Scratch PDX at 9pm. I’ve watched Scratch PDX before and I have to say it’s probably one of the most supportive performance environments I’ve seen in a long time. When I watched the show I was magnetized by Don Ker’s hosting abilities. He’s a really fun guy to have in charge of the show. Very grounded, very fun.
My set? I’m going to beat the ground with a walking stick and scream out the names of all fifty states in alphabetical order.
When: 9:00, Saturday May 16th
Where: Hipbone Studio 1847 E. Burnside #104
Cost: $8 at the door (opens at 8:30 pm)
An Awkward 10 Minutes with Mike featuring Eddie Izzard
Posted in a sassy way with tags Alternative Comedy, Comedy, Performing in General, Stand up, Video on May 13, 2009 by kjwilson
Here’s a quick video from Mike Birbiglia’s website that I enjoyed. The description is:
“Mike and Eddie chat at the Bleecker Street Theater after Eddie’s show on April 8th.”
They discuss a bit of business about working in theaters, being a comedian, some random bits about being a performer. I find this kind of converation really fun to watch. Typically, interviews with performers circle around the more heady topics, the ones that performers get the most time to think about. The kind that makes performing sound exciting, instead of a social fiesta bowl mixed with weird, fun, and awkward.
I haven’t watched any of Mike B’s longer material but every performance I watch I enjoy. He’s very genuine, which I could argue every modern comedian needs, but he also is very humble. His explanation for why he calls this segment “an awkward 10 minutes” pretty much tips this off.
And Eddie Izzard is one of my more main influences, along with the others I have mentioned.
Both are quite fun to watch. So watch it.
Another one bites the dust
Posted in Yes I have a life with tags Inspiration on May 10, 2009 by kjwilson
Poster retrospective
Posted in a sassy way with tags Art, Favorite Show, My Design on May 6, 2009 by kjwilsonSince I’m taking the month of April and May off from Favorite Show, I’ve had some time to reflect on my poster designs. Here’s a slide show of everything I’ve made so far.
I’m considering branching out to do some designs for other events, as well. We’ll see what the future holds.
