On the Subject of: The Happiest Place on Earth

ill feel no guilt going on and on about how much i love disneyland because it is tied directly into my love of indiana jones.

i love disneyland. more than someone my age reasonably aught to. i always have. it has always been for me, literally, the happiest- realest- fake place on earth.

its magic. it really is a magic kingdom. it is the stories you love and the characters you cherish brought to life. real, fake life.

when i was a kid we took a trip to disneyland and, delightfully, my sister got sick from the rides. my brother was to little to stay up late, so mom took sis and bro back to the good neighbor hotel and i got to spend an enchanted evening at disneyland just me and my daddy. i remember with perfect clarity being insanely giddy at getting to pick, without argument or objection, exactly everything we would ride and do and see for the whole night. i remember buying the biggest lolipops i could ever possibly imagine, and getting to start in on mine while sis and bro's lollys stayed safely tucked away. and i remember the walk down main street on daddy's shoulders when i was too tired to walk and had experienced all the fun i could take.

i remember when the indiana jones ride first opened. i mean FIRST opened. i remember waiting in line roughly four hours with my family. youve probably seen all the cryptic writing on the walls and floors and ceilings when you walk through the line of that ride. well, the first year it was open everyone was issued a translation card. you can pretty much still read it because its basically just english letters with some extra embelishment thrown in... but that first four hours through we Stewarts translated everything perfectly and with enormous enthusiasm.
it was really one of the first rides to have an interactive waiting experience for you. and, so many variations of the ride experience. after the first bumpy jaunt through, it was easy to convince my family to que up for another four hours.

i remember bringing my little girl zoe to disneyland when she was three. she was a big time nightmare before christmas fan, and we were there for haunted holidays- for halloween to be exact. we had just arrived and we were walking towards the haunted mansion for our first choice of ride. zoe was fit into her stroller wearing a tiny and adorable sally costume, with her stuffed sally and jack taking the ride with her. we had just passed pirates of the carribbean when they came walking out of a side street- jack and sally- arm in arm. it was early and not crowded yet. they walked right past us and, although they were being herded by a character nazi (you know, those polo shirt wearing heartless monsters who tear you off of goofy when its his break time) still, jack and sally passed by zoe and stopped, and talked to her. i can tell you, her mind was blown. the look on her face was worth whatever dollar amount disney deems fit to charge.
and although she was very little and probably doesnt remember it with the clarity that i do--- I DO. however happy she was, i was ten million times more happy. the magic was, and is, real for her. and for me.

my sensible-minded husband assures me that it is no great failure on my part that our little guy, rocket, is 2 and still has not visited the magic kingdom. i disagree. "he wont even remember it," dorian says. but my little rocket LOVES mickey mouse and he LOVES jake and the neverland pirates and he LOVES darth vadar. i know that if we take him he will spend the hours as a shaking pile of overwhelmed joy. even if he doesnt remember, i will. i will and, really, its for me. so that i can remember the times i made my kids so mindlessly happy that they drool. the time when i can get my kids the biggest lollipop they could possibly imagine, and let it color the drool like a big sticky, happy, rainbow. thats for me. i want that.

still, as much as the disneyland magic was magnified for me when i saw it through the eyes of the creatures i most adore.... those little monsters arent big enough to ride indiana jones yet. and so i will not hesitate to send them packing off to the tarzan (formerly swiss family robinson) tree house so that I can ride indiana jones.... and feel that wind whipping through my hair as my spine is joyfully jostled into disalignment.

oh, one last disneyland memory- on that same trip when i got a daddy evening to myself, i ALSO got to pull the sword from the stone. yes, THE sword from THE stone in front of the carosel in fantasy land. i got a crown.

On the Subject of: Your Naked Torso

QUICK.... today's Tee Fury shirt is INDY! ...and also katamari damisai... but also INDY!

click here to see it today before it is gone.

On the Subject of Snakes.... Why Did it Have to be Snakes

my cohort at Bookmans just sent over a proof for the Raiders poster....

I'm already super excited. are you excited? because I'm excited.

On the Subject of: Twoo Wuvv

well. Princess Bride was great. The magic works. It really is wonderful to enjoy a great movie and share the experience with a room full of people who are laughing, gasping, applauding and waiting for their favorite part.

it was also a delight to sit with my friend, the Bride "First Timer," Becca. Waiting to see if she would laugh, getting excited when the duel scene was coming, or when Inigo defeats Count Rugen... and I thought to myself... if shes really enjoying I'll know if, at the end when Columbo tells Fred Savage "as you wish" she goes, "awwww..." and she did. and so did I. and so did everyone else who enjoyed the show with us.

we gave out lots of really great prizes for trivia questions, too. and the prizes for Raiders of the Lost Ark are going to be equally epic.

On the Subject of Being in the Revenge Business Too Long

From NPR, Mandy Patinkin on Indigo & The Princess Bride

...Many years later, he heard some of Inigo's last words in the film again — "I have been in the revenge business so long, now that's over, I do not know what to do with the rest of my life" — and he heard them quite differently. "As a young man," Patinkin says, "I think I was in a bit of the revenge business for too many years of my life. And, you know, somewhere in the past 10 years, I stopped being so angry and started being a little more grateful, literally for the sunrise and the sunsets and my kids and my family and the gifts I've been given. And then I saw that movie, the end of that movie. I didn't see the whole thing, I just caught the end of it, and I heard that line. And as a young man I remember saying it, I went back and looked at my script to see what notes I'd put in, and I really didn't have any notes for that line. I just said it, and I didn't realize what I was saying. And then I heard it as a grown up or whatever you want to call me, and it-it meant everything to me today.

the whole piece is here:
Mandy Patinkin: 25 years after the Princess Bride

k.

On the Subject of: Anybody Want a Peanut? Or a Tee??

I have a problem.

I like T-Shirts.

I cant resist a nerdy Tee. I'd do almost anything to get one. I pay up to $10, maybe even $12 on some sites. I've participated in "Grab Bags" and ended up with Tees I don't actually want just for the thrill of seeing what I would get.

I get nerdy T-shirts as gifts for my family and friends... it seems like a nice, thoughtful gift. And, really, each Tee is suited to my loved ones particular interests and taste. But there is something more sinister at work... a selfish wish to always be shopping for clever Tees.

Inspired by the upcoming First Time Film Club screening of The Princess Bride, I thought I would share some wearable art:

Princess Bride Art Deco Tee


As You Wish


Anybody Want a Peanut?

and, in case you want to tempt the fates... this is where I shop for Tees:

Tee Fury

Snorg Tees

Shirt Woot

Threadless

On the Subject of: A Very Strange Journey...

Rose tint my world and keep me safe from my trouble and pain...

For today's First Time Film Club screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show I have prepared some give-a-way prizes for the Newbies who come to see it for the first time today and even one for a Super Fan or two...

We've got tickets to National Comedy Theatre's Competitive Comedy Show
as well as tickets to either Spoof N Cinema: Scared to Death
or First Time Film Club presents The Princess Bride.

Today our Newbie is Mr. Bobby O'Mara and those in attendance will get to experience the movie along with his fresh eyes. He's going to laugh in places I forgot were funny, he's going to notice things I have long since taken for granted. And, love it or hate it, he is going to walk away a better person who knows how to do the time warp.

Not sure what attendance is going to be like today, I know going in that its a risk and that the Rocky Horror tends to be a bit polarizing... but its Fight Censorship Month... so fight we must!

-k.

Bad times deceased, I feel released. My confidence has increased, reality is here. The game has been disbanded, my mind has been expanded.
- Janet Weiss, A Heroine

Dont Dream It, Be It

On the Subject of First Time Film Club screening Rocky Horror Picture Show

“the road was long but I ran it. Theres a fire in my heart and you fan it. If theres one fool for you than I am it. I have one thing to say and its, dammit, Janet, I love you!”

A bit of history, my counterpart at Bookmans suggested that we kick off our partnership in the First Time Film Club during Fight Censorship month by picking a film that had been censored. Nothing on my short list of films I simply HAVE TO SHARE with the world really fit, so I had to look a bit.

When I landed on Rocky Horror I knew that there would be a large portion of the populace who already loved this movie. I really had to question if anyone out there felt the way that I did, which was that I love it completely, but not SO COMPLETELY.
It’s a risk, starting with a movie that has a cult following of corseted dance enthusiasts.

Yes. Im starting this project, which means so much to me, with a risk! Dumb idea?
Time will tell.
And… maybe time will let me get into a phone booth, Delorian or police box and fix things if they don’t work out. Seriously, time. I mean, I let you turn me 30. Don’t I get a little tit for tat?

Anyway, the people from Bookmans were nice enough to greenlight this partnership and then they merely suggested we kick off with a censored film. When I decided on Rocky Horror I thought, here is something I can speak to in, perhaps, a new way.

I hope you are willing to join me on a very strange journey. Just a jump to the left and then a small step to the right.

I don’t think there is anyone out there at all that wouldn’t be in for this experience. If you haven’t EVER seen ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW… you NEED to. It will enrich your life and give you infinitely more pop-culture power. Or, at the very least, you will have a great time with us and then walk away able to say, yeah, not for me. Corsets… ick.

If you HAVE seen it and LOVE it but never went in for dance a long midnight showings, come out and meet your friends.

If you HAVE seen it and LOVE it and you DO DANCE ALONG in full costume… come out and see it with us. You can explain to us why toast must fly.

I Can think of no single human who would not benefit from this event.
And… it will get you on board to support First Time Film Club. Support me! And my dream!
Hey man, all I can do is ask.

In closing I will note that the thing that has always stayed with me in my heart is the number where my own Tim Curry begs of us "Dont dream it. Be it."

After all, isn’t THAT my message?

Yoda says Try Not. Iowa farmers say that “If you build it, they will come.” Goonies never say die. Frankenfurter says “Dont Dream it. Be it.”

Join me, wont you?
Wont you.

On the subject of First Time Film Club and Limitless Possibility

On the subject of First Time Fillm Club and Limitless Possibility
which is dedicated to my friend Allison Reese

Nothing is Unpossible.

It was as if a “far in the future” me would eventually visit a “recent future me” and tell us that one day I would be able to turn my love of movies into something more than a hobby. "Recent future me" would, of course, trust “far in the future me”, as Marty McFly has taught us all to do.

Was that confusing? What I mean to say is, it was as if I could sense that something new and cool was waiting just over the horizon… Better? Also, don’t call me chicken.

For “in the present me,” several things happened around the same time.

I accomplished a goal that had been out of reach for 5+ years: National Comedy Theatre got a liquor license. We built the Lounge and started serving delicious beer.
The thing about the liquor license is, it was something we wanted way back in 2007 before NCT ever even opened for real. At that time we were told we couldn’t have it. We were told, for years, that it was unpossible.

As it turns out, it was not.

I was able to do. Not “do not.” Nor “try not,” as Yoda might put it.

Just as that was all in the process of happening, my friend Allison revealed that she had never seen Star Wars before. I really couldn’t let that stand. I mean, after all, she’s a bright young woman with a big future in front of her. In fact, she’s moving to LA to pursue her dream of being a big time comedian. No one will hire her if she doesn’t know the difference between a Taun Taun and an AT-AT! I did what any mentor would do… I bullied her into coming over and watching all 3 original Star Wars with me.

And it was really fun.

Watching each one accompanied by the fresh eyes of the uninitiated was amazingly entertaining for me.
(movie is paused)
“Now, something is about to happen Allison and I don’t want you going through life with the wrong impression. You are about to see Greedo shoot first and, this is a lie. It is revisionist history. Han shot first. Say it, Allison, say Han shot first.”
“Han shot first.”
(movie is resumed)

Meanwhile, back at the bat cave... I was listening to Riki Lindhome interview Tom Lennon and Chris Hardwick, I was inspired.

I started reading the Nerdist Way.

I started believing that I could make and follow my own nerd path if I worked for it.

If we can serve beer at NCT… we can do anything! Except allow anyone under age 19 to serve that beer…
So... aside from breaking the law, we can do anything!

I decided that, once the madness of the Lounge had died down, my next big project would be to start screening movies at NCT. Something inspired by Doug Benson’s Movie Interruptions but with the twist inspired by watching Star Wars with Allison.

I think the Nerd Universe heard me.

A representative of local awesome Bookmans Entertainment Exchange came out to the show and we set out to work together, partnering to bring our Movie Mashterpiece Theatre shows AND the First Time Film Club to the people, on our stage at National Comedy Theatre.

…And now I am in the process of working hard to make that happen.

Our first event is coming up soon, I am nervous and excited. Many thanks are in order, obviously. Thanks to Lori from Bookman’s for helping to make it possible. Thanks to Midnight Movie Mamacita and friend Andrea Beesley for getting the whole thing started in the first place with the MashTerpiece Theatre project. Thanks to Allison for spending her youth playing the “sports” instead of becoming a nerd like me. And thanks go out across the nerd universe to Chris Hardwick, Riki Lindhome, Tom Lennon, and Doug Benson, my heroes who have inspired me.

“You have just taken your first step into a larger world.” –Obi Wan

On the Subject of Things That are Happening:

This is happening: National Comedy Theatre and Bookman's Present
Spoof N Cinema: D.O.A.

Its MashTerpiece Theatre! Well loved at Phoenix Comic Con, The Royale and MadCap Theaters... now its coming home to NCT!

If you like MST3K and Whose Line is it Anyway... this is for you!

We takea wonderfully terrible bit of Noir and give it a do over! The dialogue and sound effects will all be performed LIVE! for YOU!

Come see! Thursday 8/30 at 9:30pm get tickets right now!

and also this is happening: National Comedy Theatre and Bookman's Present First Time Film CLub: Rocky Horror Picture Show


Its fun, its fighting censorship, its first time First Time Film Club!

at this event you can watch long time fave Rocky Horror- with a twist. Two professional comedians will be hosting your viewing experience- one who is a fan of the film and one who has never seen it before! Fresh-eyes, Nerd-eyes, and YOUR eyes on Tim Curry in drag... its gonna be a good time.

and... we may have an added level of fandom as a few members of the cast of Tempe's Midnight Shows may be there to join us and let us in on some of the secrets of the SUPERFans.

Saturday September 8 3:00pm get tickets right now!

“Would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?” –El Guapo… Three Amigos


I’ve seen a fair few movies. Its safe to say I am a movie fan, a film buff, a complete nerd… if you will.

As a kid my family watched movies. It was what we did. And we went after it with the gusto of an Amish family tending crops or hating buttons. The Stewarts owned hundreds of VHS tapes. A plethora, if you will.


See kids, in those days talkin’ pictures were only available for home viewing on these big, clunky plastic rectangles that had to be physically rewound to the beginning once you had journeyed to the end.


But, if you were frugal, you could totally fit more than one movie on a VHS tape.
2 1/3 movies was about average. This means that, at the Stewart house, if you wanted to watch Die Hard you had to fast forward through Robin Hood: Prince of Theives. Also, as soon as Die Hard ended, the Princess Bride would begin. But, if you got caught up in watching Princess Bride, right after Buttercup declares that she will never love again… you would have to go find the other VHS tape that had the last 2/3 of Princess Bride, Top Gun and 3/4 of Point Break.

You could also expect that the previous viewer had not been kind, had not taken the time to rewind, so before you could experience what happens should you go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line you’d spend 15 minutes holding down the RW button so it would go faster.
It was a great time to be alive.*

My family had a habbit of watching the same movies over and over again. Dad is a Kevin Costner fan and a Bruce Willis enthusiast. My mom likes Elvis and things involving a Hanks/Ryan situation. My siblings, thankfully, share my addiction to timeless comedy classics like the Jerk, Three Amigos, Funny Farm, Monty Python, Death Becomes Her, anything with Tim Curry (Rocky Horror, Clue, Fern Gully, Oscar. You know, the one where Stalone plays a gangster gone straight… you know, Chaz Palmenteri is in it and Marissa Tormei and Isabella Rossolini… stop acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about!). There is a Keanu Reeves fetish we mostly don’t talk about. I am happily and shamelessly pleased by Speed, Point Break, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and, yes, their Bogus Journey as well.

Sabrina, Kenny and I mostly communicate with each other via a system of movie quotes, like semifore. “Earnest, Im in the morgue!” “Flames, on the side of my face…” “El Guapo only kills men, he does not kill crying women.” we are stunted emotionally, but well educated in the currency of pop culture- and way ahead of our times.

In the interest of you getting to know me better I should also mention that my Dad, a man of many hats, was a sometime video production guy. We had a full, professional editing bay in our laundry room. It was huge. Like when you see computers in the 70s and they take up 3 stories of a 6 story building. You needed 1000 sq. feet of equipment in those days to do what any kid with a smart phone can do these days. My dad used his editing powers “for good” and would take out bad words, scary stuff or people doin it. I was fully an adult before I found out there was more to the line than “yippee kai-ya...” I grew up thinking that poltergeist was 37 minutes long and not that interesting, and I was at least 20 before I had any idea that Maverick and Charlie were “riding the hobby horse, as they say” in Top Gun.**

It was a great time to be alive.***

Continuing our proposition that you get to know me better, I should mention that I have an innate gift for memorizing things. Rather than memorize something useful, like- maritime law or something- I memorize things nobody cares about. Like the 1985 Val Kilmer classic Real Genius… “You remind me of me. And lately I’ve been missing me so I asked Hathoway if I could room with me again and he said “Sure.”

I would watch the same movies over and over and over again to the point where I achieved complete memorization of not only dialogue but also tone and inflection. As a nerd (which is cool now but, I assure you, was NOT then) and I person with control issues (never been cool at any point in history) my goal has always been to enjoy the things I love so completely that I bind them to my DNA spiderman-style and, as a result, conquer and own them completely. (see: Green Day)

We had laser disc. We had a 72 inch television in 1990. It was 3 feet thick. When my mom went out of town my dad let us rent horror movies. That’s right, we didn’t always turn to our impressive VHS/laser disc collection. The Stewart’s were also regulars known by name to Bill (our slightly more polite version of Randall Graves) at the corner Video +.

See kids, in those days we didn’t have DVRs or NetFlix-es. If you wanted to see something you didn’t own, that wasn’t playing on television at that very moment, you had to get all the way into an automobile and drive over to the corner Video+ and trade money with a professional nerd (as a renter you had amature status.) By doing this you officially entered into an agreement to borrow the movie for 24 hours.

Places like Video+ often had only one copy of each title, this was before even Blockbuster existed. One had to be a bit of a rental store ninja if you wanted to rent Jurassic Park hot off the presses. “Hold on to your butts.”

It was a great time to be alive.

Sometimes as we move through life it can be tough to remember that not everyone grew up same as you. Like, I imagine most Amish people assume that everyone has crops to tend and disdain for buttons. Me? I assume that all people on earth have not only seen, but also enjoyed and subsequently memorized, all the same things that I have.

When I approach someone and say “Pop quiz hot shot…” they will know to respond with “d\What do you do” and then, with more Keanu sass this time, “What DOOO you DUUUUE??” Instead, most regular folk (and especially the Amish) end up backing away slowly without breaking eye contact, palms raised in a universally non-threatening pose.

So, lets jump to this moment right now… I’m standing in the lobby of the National Comedy Theatre and my friend Anthony Lopez (see: Anthony Lopez) finds it amusing to list for me all of the movies he has not seen, Top Gun, the Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense. It is shameful. And there are a lot of people out there like him.

I may never win a gold medal in usefulness, but I can do my part for America and see these wrongs righted. I can show Anthony Lopez a world where Kaiser Souze sees dead people but he hits the breaks and they fly right by.

I declare that NOW is a great time to be alive!****

*It was not.
**See, what I did there was mix in a Top Gun reference with a Breakfast Club quote. Still with me? Great. We are going to be fast friends.
***Again, it was not. We didn’t even have smart phones, for god’s sake.
****You can watch TV on your PHONE! Even Back to the Future 2 didn’t have that!