If you like comedy, PR or the occasional inside scoop on the entertainment world, then drop by for a daily dose written by me, Kambri Crews, producer and publicist to comedians and more!   Sunday, July 31, 2005 Potential Suicide Bombers Take Note I live equidistant between two stops in Queens on the R/V/G line. One is famed Steinway Street the other 36th Street. I usually walk to the former because it's more populated, I pass a deli on the way for my morning paper and it's generally safer. The latter, however, is one stop closer to the city (I'm a whopping three stops from my part time office in the City) and during daylight hours is a pretty safe walk along Northern Boulevard. But the stop itself is sketchy. I have often been the only one on the platform -- on either side -- for long stretches of time. As I ventured in to the city for two parties last night, I snapped this photo as evidence of how deserted the stop is. I have watched a baby mouse turn into this: Notice the angle of the photo? Yep, I'm sitting on the bench and he's just hanging out right next to my feet. About five minutes later a woman came through the turnstile and made to sit down next to me when she gasped and froze in her tracks. I said, "Oh don't worry, he's been there forever munching on something." She didn't buy it and ran the other way which sent my friend lazily trotting the other way before heading back to whatever he was eating in the crack. Really, there's not much for him to worry about there on 36th Street. I see him every time I'm there. He has passed me on the stairs, has snuck in and out of holes and cans and is just generally found hanging out. If he isn't worried about the fuzz, why would a terrorist be? You could set up shop and build a bomb in that station and take your sweet time doing it, too. So, yeah, random bag searches are fruitless when you consider the dozens of other stations just like this one: uncared for, unnoticed and a place a rat could call home. --Kambri Summer colds stink and I have a doozy. Not good for the big party tomorrow. Link - 5:32 PM -   Saturday, July 30, 2005 EW Sound Bite Update So as I said, Entertainment Weekly did run the quote I submitted. [View the scan.] Then I found out that not only do they publish sound bites on their website, they include a bunch of other quotes that didn't make the print edition. And...you can vote on your favorite. Obviously Conan is this week's clear favorite, but you could still vote for Christian's quote if you wanted to. --Kambri Sound Bites is now bookmarked. How could I not have known! Link - 5:52 PM -   Thursday, July 28, 2005 New York Magazine New York listed the Fringe Benefit party I'm helping produce and promote. They only listed two comedy events (the online version listed three), so I'm pretty pleased with it. They even put a little red star next to mine. [View the scan.] Did I tell you Demetri Martin will be performing in Christian's absence? The reason why will be posted in about two weeks. It's all good. --Kambri Saw Hustle & Flow. It was a'ight. Link - 2:56 PM -   Wednesday, July 27, 2005 Crossing My Fingers And preemptively posting a potential press hit by telling y'all to grab the next EW. A "Sound Bite" I submitted is supposed to be re-printed. UPDATE: The new Entertainment Weekly came out and they did, in fact, run the quote I submitted. I'll post it soon. --Kambri Of course, now it won't be since I've told all 50 of you. Link - 12:48 AM -   Tuesday, July 26, 2005 National Feature in a Nudie Mag! Lookie here, kids! On newsstands today -- all across the land -- lonely men who hate women, fathers who can't get laid by their only woman, women who love fantasizing about women, boys who can't yet get women, girls who want to be women...oy, that could go on forever...basically, anybody who picks up the September 2005 issue of Penthouse will see a nice two page feature interview with Christian. Besides being great exposure (sorry, no pun intended), it's quite possibly his best interview to date. Congratulations, Christian! --Kambri I'll post the interview once the issue is no longer available on stands. I don't want to spoil their fun. Link - 8:43 AM -   Monday, July 25, 2005 In Case of Emergency Gothamist has a brief entry about subway bag checks here in NYC. From the comments, the general consensus is that bag checks -- whether you agree with them or not -- are a useless show. I rarely comment on sites, but I did on this one hoping that Gothamist can use their journalistic resources and look into the issue I raised. Here's my comment: A potential bonus side effect might be a general decline in subway crime because of the increased police presence. But, yeah, I think bag checking is generally ineffective in preventing terrorism and all for show. Something I am truly concerned with is why many (most?) doors between cars are locked and marked "Emergency Only." So, how do you get out of a burning or smoke- or poison-filled car? You don't. Sometime in the last few days, I read that the MTA has no intention of changing the rule that those doors remain locked citing "daily safety" as the issue. Of course, I now can't find the article that addressed this but I will be sure to go out of my way to ride in the car with the conductor. --Kambri Link - 12:32 PM -   Christian performed his last show in Atlanta last night and after saying his goodbyes at the club, promptly returned to his hotel room. With a 5:30 wake up call for an early flight home, he wanted to say good night to me then hit the sack. While we were chatting, his hotel phone rang. Thinking it was the club, he answered and said he'd call me right back. Two seconds later, with a weird tone in his voice he said, "It was some girl who wanted to give me a t-shirt." Wha?! This girl watched the show and Christian mentioned a performer. She drove home got said performer's t-shirt for him, drove back to the club and seeing he wasn't there, called his hotel who then patched her through! *%$^#@ How did she know where he was staying, you ask? He happened to mention it while on stage. We go back and forth about how fu*ked up that is, was she friends with a waitress maybe, that he should not tell the name of the real hotel on stage, etc. Then... Knock, knock, knock. Luckily it was just the desk clerk who delivered the t-shirt she left with them with a note with her email address. But, wow, how aggressive and crazy especially at 11:45 on a Sunday night! --Kambri The hotel clearly isn't following post-9/11 security measures! Link - 1:19 AM -   Friday, July 22, 2005 TVLand Game Time If I told you what stunts they had at the taping of TVLand's Game Time, you wouldn't believe me. The next taping will be in August. Hope you can make it. Meanwhile, catch new episodes of Game Time during commercial breaks every Monday from 9:00 - 11:00 PM. --Kambri Link - 11:45 PM -   Thursday, July 21, 2005 Quotable Quotes Comedian Christian Finnegan (VH1's Best Week Ever, Chappelle's Show) was on The Today Show on July 20, 2005. Here are a few things he said to Katie Couric: On Jude Law having an affair with his children's nanny: "Getting mad as Jude Law for seducing women is like getting mad at a hamster for running on a wheel. It's what he does." "What's really sad is somewhere in America a morning radio DJ is putting together a really awful parody of the song 'Hey Jude'." On Tommy Lee & Pamela Anderson getting married for the 3rd time: "The question here isn't 'Will the bride be wearing white?'- it's 'Will the bride be wearing anything?'" On Cameron Diaz having posed for topless photos: "At this point, I'd be more surprised to find out a star hadn't taken topless photos. I mean, what were we expecting to find out, that Cameron Diaz is secretly a member of Mensa? That someone uncovered her long-lost college thesis?" --Kambri Wonder if Time or EW will pick him again? Link - 9:39 AM -   Wednesday, July 20, 2005 What an Idiot. Off to the Today Show in about six hours but I can't stop thinking about this quote I read in the latest Entertainment Weekly: "You gotta find chemistry. Someone that looks right, you know, age. Ewan looks like he's 32, so you gotta find a 20-year-old for him." -- Michael Bay on casting Scarlett Johansson as the love interest to Ewan McGregor in his latest film The Island. --Kambri I call dibs on Michael Bay's balls. You can have the rest. Link - 12:01 AM -   Tuesday, July 19, 2005 Today Show & TVLand Tomorrow is a Today Show spot for the Best Week Ever panelists. I'll post an air time when it is confirmed. After that, we're off to the TVLand Game Time shoot. If you're part of the live studio audience, be sure you are over 21 and aren't late. Since I'm into sharing too much information lately I was standing in a packed V train wearing a flouncy silk skirt when I felt a tickle on the back of my thigh. I tensed up and took a suspicious look around. No likely characters stood out so I said nothing. But then I felt it again...this time lower and it was moving slowly down my thigh to my knee then further further down. One big bead of sweat. From my arse. Read Christian's take on the heat. --Kambri Link - 2:47 PM -   Monday, July 18, 2005 Event Planning Made Simple An event for a US Congressman just wrapped up. Quite possibly the easiest events I've ever planned. Ridiculously easy. Why can't all events be so simple? And the easy answer isn't money because there are strict campaign finance regulations to adhere to, so it might as well have been Jest Magazine National Launch Party done for less than $500 which was hard work, long hours and many sleepless nights. Speaking of, have you seen the last issue of Jest? There's a nice two page photo spread in the back covering the party with lots of great photos. Holy Cripes! I've gotta a gamillion hits from that Village Voice article and subsequent follow up from comedy bloggers. --Kambri I like my usual paltry couple of hundred visitors today. Link - 1:59 PM -   Sunday, July 17, 2005 RKB & KC Interview - Unabridged Some of the questions posed by Rachel Kramer Bussel and my answers are below. Many of my answers are things I've posted on my blog before, so for regular readers it's a bit redundant. Oh well. RKB: How do you feel when he tells jokes about you onstage? Me: My main concern is that the joke is funny. If all the jokes he ever said about me bombed, then he might become paranoid that being single was better for his comedy. I'd be more worried if he never told a joke about me. Comedians get their material from their every day lives. If the topic of his girlfriend never came up, I'd wonder who in the room he was trying to screw. The first time I heard him tell a joke about me, I had no idea he'd even written it. He just launched into, "I knew I wanted to date my girlfriend when..." I immediately became a nervous giggler and laughed way too loud and long. I practically missed half of what he was saying. The gist of it was that he knew he wanted to date me when he found out my favorite band is AC/DC. As he tells it, "If a woman likes AC/DC, you know she likes to fuck. On the other hand, if she's a fan of Sarah McLachlan then it would mean a lot of cuddling; a lot of blue balls." RKB: Does he bring his humor into the bedroom? Me: I have found comedians to be supremely insecure people. If I started laughing at him in bed, he might never get it up again. But post-sex and waking up naked in the morning is more fun. He does this thing where he pushes in my nipple like it's a button and with each push my nipple makes a different sound e.g., a fog horn, air fart, elephant...The anticipation of what the next sound could possibly be becomes a ticklish, giddy expectation. I never got that kind of unabashed silliness with any accountant I ever dated. RKB: Is dating a comedian better/different than non-comedians? Me: Assuming their career keeps growing, eventually they will travel a lot and anything in their daily life is a potential springboard for a joke. During one afternoon while he was away, we engaged in phone sex and my call waiting beeped. It was a friend of mine who is really hard to get in touch with. I didn't want to miss the call, so I clicked over. I don't know what I was thinking! It's not as thought we were just flirting and talking dirty, we were in full-blown, hands-on-genitals phone sex and I took another call ---- from a gay man. Once I got back to Christian, we finished our "business" but then I started fretting. What if he makes a joke about this? But I can't go tiptoeing around life wondering if I'll be the butt of a joke. Even if I tried to modify my behavior, eventually that would be too exhausting. Life would win out. The fact is, I'll be a jackass worth ridiculing every now and then. Besides, part of what makes a joke funny is that people can somehow identify with it. I'm not so radically different from any other woman. When he's making fun of "me" or "us," he's making a broad exaggeration poking fun about women and relationships in general. If I started hyper-examining those jokes, he would have no room for creativity. RKB: Are you ever worried about groupies? Me: Worried? No. Disgusted? Yes. They feed in to every stereotype about women who only like guys with certain power or earnings potential. How pathetic. Didn't we liberate ourselves from this shit? If, after watching Christian perform his set (which includes much information about me, his live-in girlfriend), a woman is still compelled to come on to Christian, well, she's just guaranteed herself a spot on my HOMICIDAL KILLING SPREE TO DO LIST: 1. Buy hatchet, bread, rope, duct tape, toilet paper, eggs. 2. Chop up the whores who try to fuck my man. 3. Get rid of hatchet. 4. 8:00 show at Caroline's RKB: How does it feel to be dating someone who is on TV and recognizable to the public? 99% of the time it's fun. I am so immensely proud of him and his accomplishments and for him to get spotted on the street just affirms that his talent and hard work is being recognized. Then there's that 1% that makes me embarrassed for our society. For instance, during a trip to DC we went to the National Archives and were mobbed by groups of these teen 'delegates' in town for the inauguration. We're standing next to the Emancipation Proclamation and they're taking flash photography, which is against the law and damaging to historical documents. These cream-of-the-crop kids were more interested in a guy who makes fun of Lindsay Lohan's breast implants than the document that ensured black people their freedom. RKB: Are there things someone (guy or girl) should know about dating a comedian before they embark on a relationship with one? Me: Be flexible with what you consider a "date" and their overall wacky schedules. I happen to like meeting new people and going out to see shows, so sometimes our date night is dinner, him performing a set then just hanging out at the venue afterwards. If that doesn't sound appealing to you, then don't date a comedian. Being in the clubs and around other performers is an integral part of their career growth. Also, if you're in a room full of comedians, chances are you are one, maybe two, degrees away from anyone your comedian lover has either fucked or made out with. They're an incestuous bunch. --Kambri Well, that was fun. Thanks, Rachel! Link - 6:02 PM -   Saturday, July 16, 2005 Sex Lives and Videotape Christian and I were interviewed by the lovely Ms. Rachel Kramer Bussel for a Village Voice piece on the sex lives of comedians. Read the whole article here. --Kambri Later I will post some of my questions and answers that didn't make the cut. Link - 12:47 PM -   Thursday, July 14, 2005 Tampa Bay Times Quickie interview with Christian for his Tampa Bay stint. Too bad I can't link to radio interviews. Or can I? Does anybody know stuff like that? --Kambri A big interview hits the stands in 12 days. Link - 12:01 AM -   Wednesday, July 13, 2005 Save the Date FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Kambri Crews Email: kambri@ballyhoopromotions.net New York, NY - July 9, 2005 - On Monday, August 1st, Rule of 3 Productions will host a party at Siberia benefiting the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival production This Isn't Working written by Francesco ("Ces") Marciuliano, the nationally syndicated cartoonist behind the strip Sally Forth, Medium Large, and humor website DrinkatWork.com. For a $10 donation, guests will enjoy performances by top New York City stand up comedians, a chance to compete in a quiz show for great prizes and receive one free Red Stripe. Performers include Christian Finnegan (Chappelle's Show, Best Week Ever), Aziz Ansari (TimeOut NY’s "favorite new comedian"), Shayna Ferm (Fearsome, Maxim Radio), John Mulaney, musical guest Langhorne Slim and more! Monday, August 1, 2005 Siberia 40th & 9th (black door, red light) 212-333-4141 Door opens at 6:00 The Quiz Game Contest Show starts at 7:30 Comedy / Music begins at 8:15 Admission: $10 donation Gift bags provided while supplies last. For anyone who's been told "Sick days are for the weak" comes This Isn't Working, a collection of four short comedies about the ideas we don't share in brainstorming sessions, the goals we don't discuss in year-end reviews and the people we don't ever want to see outside of the office. Support this hilarious and clever show by having fun with the cast and crew all while enjoying comedy, music and one free beer courtesy of Red Stripe! Visit This Isn't Working for more info about the cast, crew and production dates. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Francesco ("Ces") Marciuliano was born in New York and attended Duke University, not entirely on his parents' dime, where he graduated with a major in English Literature and a minor panic attack. In addition to writing the nationally syndicated comic Sally Forth, Ces pens his original strip Medium Large available weekdays at www.drinkatwork.com. Other writing stints have included The New York Times, Random House, Scholastic, Disney Publications, Reader’s Digest, Harvard Business Review and The Economist. ABOUT THE PERFORMERS: Musical guest Langhorne Slim hails from the dark forests of Pennsylvania and recently moved to Brooklyn, NY in order to perfect his already natural born gift of writing and recording music. He has toured the US extensively with the Trachtenberg Slideshow Family and played the Bonaroo Music Festival sharing the stage with Neil Young, Sonic Youth and James Brown to name just a few. With an innate ability to engage with the audience Slim's live performances are legendary for unexpected mayhem. Christian Finnegan is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor based in New York City. He currently can be seen on VH1's hit series Best Week Ever and on his own half hour stand up comedy special Comedy Central Presents Christian Finnegan. Chappelle's Show fans know Christian as "Chad", the only white roommate in "The Mad Real World" sketch. In addition to his on-camera work, Christian served as a staff writer on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and is a frequent contributor to FLIcK and Jest magazines. Originally from South Carolina, Aziz Ansari is a 22 year old standup comedian based in New York City that TimeOut New York recently called their "favorite new standup." He also won the Emerging Comics of New York award for Best Male Standup in 2005. Later this year, Aziz will be appearing on the new season of Comedy Central's Premium Blend and he's also featured on the Comedy Central CD/DVD compilation Invite Them Up. Shayna Ferm is a comedian, writer, actress and chanteuse. She is a co-creator, writer and performer for the award-winning sketch comedy sextet Fearsome and has been playing her comedy songs in rooms all over New York City. She has also recorded songs for Maxim Radio and has been played on Sirius Satellite Radio's "Alternative Nation." John Mulaney grew up in Chicago and began performing Improv and Stand-up comedy while in college. In 2003 he won the DC Improv's New Talent Competition. He co-wrote the ECNY award winning short-film "Cavalcade of Personalities," which appeared on Comedy Central's "Jump Cuts." He is the co-creator of "I Love the 30s." He is a regular performer on the Rififi beat as well as at PSNBC and The Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater. # # # --Kambri Promises to be a great event. Come on down! Link - 5:46 PM -   Saturday, July 09, 2005 Working Like a Dog Paquita scored her first paying gig. (Sadly, the Onion did not give her credit or pay.) She'll be promoting PerfectMatch.com as part of a Must Love Dogs guerilla marketing campaign. She's getting paid a tidy little sum and will even get her own Pet Taxi and meals. Details are still being worked out. More to follow. --Kambri What the heck did Molly Shannon do on the red carpet, people!?!? Link - 8:36 PM -   Friday, July 08, 2005 Or Just Be Part of the Process Okay, so maybe you work days or live out of town and can't be part of the game show studio audience (see yesterday's post), well, all is not lost. You can still participate in the entertainment process by helping Ballyhoo Promotions' client Andres du Bouchet pick out his sketches to submit to Saturday Night Live. What Did Molly Shannon DO? I get tons of hits from people searching for Molly Shannon red carpet boobie pictures. Some search as though it was an intentional prank, others as though Ms. Molly had a Tara Reid gaffe. Someone please direct me (and all my errant Googlers) to the answer. --Kambri ISO Boobies Link - 12:17 AM -   Thursday, July 07, 2005 Be Part of a Studio Audience (Free Alcohol)! TV Land Presents: Game Time TV Land offers what no other network can - TV Satisfaction. Why waste your valuable time flipping around the dial? There's always something on -- time-tested and audience-approved, 24 hours a day. Be part of a live taping of Game Time, hosted by hysterical comic Christian Finnegan. Wednesday, July 20, 2005 The Supper Club 240 West 47th Street New York, NY 10036 2:30pm & 5:30pm Audience members will be invited on stage, to participate in a series of Jeopardy styled questions focusing on classic TV trivia, shows like I LOVE LUCY, BONANZA, BEWITCHED, MR. ED, THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, THE MUNSTERS, I DREAM OF JEANNIE, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, THE BRADY BUNCH and ALL IN THE FAMILY. Participation is optional. The day is broken down into two shoots. The first episode shoots from 2:30-5:30- Snacks and soft drinks provided The second episode shoots from 5:30-9:00pm Snacks, soft drinks and alcohol provided. --Kambri RSVP to me via email. Include your full name & which taping you'd like to attend. Link - 11:09 AM -   Wednesday, July 06, 2005 Day Two of Self Employment Went to Chase -- zero wait -- opened a new checking and savings account with free upgrades thanks to my sweet arse part time gig. (Did I tell you I'll be working with an ex-VP of the USofA? Weird.) Ernesto threw in business and personal credit cards. He waived the annual fee & gave me 0% financing and signed me up for the air mileage bonus and waived those fees, too. I'm not sure why. Paquita sat quietly in my lap the whole time not realizing that this is a work day -- a day she would normally be left alone -- and that Ernesto kept calling her Chaquita. Went to my other bank and closed out my old savings account, went to the gym for two hours (4th time...how many times makes a habit? And, more importantly, how long before I actually see any results?), emailed off and on all day long, grocery shopped and am now sitting down to write a press release or two or three and assemble some packages to mail out. I feel on one hand utterly productive and on the other that maybe I should have been behind my desk all day. Nice dilemma. I've now officially been hit on twice at the gym. Once while Christian was there. On one hand, I'm annoyed -- I'm at the gym to work out, I look my absolute worst and, well, I'm not into those muscle-y gymnoholics. On the other hand, hey, those muscle-y gymnoholics think I'm kinda cute and in shape enough while in my workout gear. Cool. --Kambri Stinky and sore. Link - 5:10 PM -   Tuesday, July 05, 2005 I Need a New Camera & Some Talent My cousin Wil, Editor of the Seminole Producer & avid photographer, took the most excellent photo of fireworks ever. --Kambri I wonder how the photos would have turned out from my fire escape had Wil been here. Link - 11:02 PM -   Monday, July 04, 2005 How I Spent My Summer Vacation - July 4th Edition First stop: Nathan's for the 2005 Nathan's Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest where American, Sonya Thomas, set a new (American) record by eating 37 hot dogs and buns in twelve minutes. Despite her record setting efforts, she still only managed second place as four-time world champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan managed to devour 49 hot dogs becoming the clear winner once again. FYI, Christian and I tied at two each. Next stop: The Cyclone. I actually did get mild whiplash. What a piece o' shite. Per the aforelinked site, "The Cyclone has consistently ranked at or near the top of every roller coaster top ten list published." Clearly these aficionados are buffs for nostalgia and are not rating the coaster for performance and overall thrills. The first hill provided mild butterflies in the belly but after that I was beaten like a rented mule. I wonder how many necks have snapped? Tongues have been bitten? Brains traumatized? Rough. Most unexpectedly scary as hell ride was Saturn 6. I'm not sure when I became such a wuss -- I can't say with 100% certainty that I actually am a wuss until I've been back to Cedar Point -- but I was terrified. Why? It came so bone-chillingly close to a tree, the roof of a building, some electrical wires and, well, let's just say the ride operators were about 12 years old and a bit pre-occupied with some hulking dude ("HD") who was pissed that his little tiny, eensy baby wasn't allowed to ride. It actually resulted into a bit of a shouting match which trickled off the ride and ended with the HD's baby momma hitting HD in the mouth! I kept imagining the HD storming the controls and killing us all. I wanted off. The ride stopped finally and I saw one of the operators carrying the baby off the platform. In the midst of the scuffle, HD's eensy baby had wandered onto the ride -- luckily after the ride had stopped completely. Oy, decapitated babies are not my idea of a happy holiday. Normally my favorite ride is the Zipper, but after Rob P. told us he saw someone welding it earlier, I opted out. Ah, Coney Island, you gotta love it. Third stop: Game time! We played skee ball (I won two of three awarding me with two early morning coffee runs by Christian) and lots of fun carnival games. Christian scored this counterfeit Blues Clues dog for Paquita. It's a little big for her to beat around so I'm trying to teach her how to hump it instead of my arm. Final stop: Home! We have a great view of the city from our bedroom window and our rooftop connects with so many other buildings we were certain to have a great view near the comforts of home. But we didn't plan a gathering -- no time since vacation and without actually having witnessed a July 4th from this new apartment, we didn't want to risk disappointing friends. Instead, we sat on our fire escape drank wine and enjoyed the fireworks and our awesome view. Sadly, my digital photo isn't good at the night shots but here's an idea of how it looked early on before the smoke covered the Empire State Building & the Chrysler Building. Kambri Working from home! Link - 11:48 PM -   Friday, July 01, 2005 On Sale Now --Kambri Link - 6:27 PM -