Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Oscars and The Yogis



Two Sundays ago, 32.3 million people huddled around their televisions to watch the 80th Annual Academy Awards. None of those people were my friends. I was alone and hungry, and it was in my grocer's dairy section that I decided to throw my own party. And I would celebrate by doing something I never have the guts to do: I was going to buy all the kinds of yogurt I normally dismiss as too expensive or too weird to eat!

Yes, first-year psych students, evidence has been growing that when our need for social relationships is not met, we fall apart mentally. What's your point?

If you're like me, when you think party, you think yogurt. Inexplicable amounts of yogurt in flavor combinations that make more sense in a garbage pail. Had I only moved an inch over to the pudding section, this might have made an interesting story! And so began the 1st Annual Yogi Awards, whereby I would compare different kinds of the same product JUST BECAUSE. What better complement to the Oscars than something bitter, low in fat, and artificially sweet?

I think I stole that line from Jon Stewart.

"Ms. Crutchfield! Ms. Crutchfield! Who are you wearing?"



The top is from Target, and the scrubs are from some hospital where my mother worked. It's a look I call Pajamas in the Early Evening. Created by old farts, but perfected by lazy bums.

Tonight's Yogi Awards are sponsored by Dairy Digestive Aid, the generic Lactaid. "We don't need commercials to prove our product works. Just someone who's never heard of a placebo."



The presenters were all selected with care. The scoop and I go way back, the little one is new and wanted the kind of exposure my blog can provide. The other spoon ran away with my dish, and that's all I am at liberty to say.



Invitees were treated to a swag bag (of groceries) including Tombstone pizza, Jones cream soda and Tollhouse cookies (a $12.49 value)!



The nominations for Most Acceptable Flavor for a Healthy Kind are:


Stonyfield Farm organic, fat-free, fruit-on the bottom in Strawberry.


Breyers New! Smart! with DHA Omega-3 All natural "Boost Your Brain" low-fat yogurt in Mixed Berry.

Stonyfield almost got disqualified for bribing the Academy with a free book offer under the lid. The fruit on the bottom is not a plus when the top layer is so awful. The yogurt was like slimy fat, so it was entirely up to the fruit. Breyers spit at me when I opened it, in protest of awards ceremonies (how Woody Allen). The initial taste pre-stirring was gritty (secret ingredient=sand?), and I thought it might go bad while I ate it. I can only assume DHA and Omega-3 means steroids. The berry taste was closer to sunscreen than fruit. Stonyfield gets the award. Breyers should stick with ice cream.

The nominations for Inappropriately Tropical like a Chimp in a Movie are:


Yoplait original 99% fat-free in Guava


Yoplait original 99% fat-free in Passion Fruit

This is like two actors in the same family. But not Alec Baldwin vs. Billy Baldwin. More like Stephen Baldwin vs. Rehab McLooney Tunes Baldwin. Let it be known that natural Guava tastes like an armpit. That being said, this yogurt matched it perfectly. The lid lick reaction for the Passion Fruit: yuck. It tastes no different from the Guava. All tropical fruits must taste the same. Except Passion Fruit has slightly more of a pepper kick. Followed by a hint of pineapple. When I went back to the Guava, it tasted like roasted turkey and gravy. Yoplait is the quality of Morgan Freeman, and these flavors are like The Bucket List. But Passion Fruit wins.

The nominations for Higher Fat Content And Higher Cost Due To Being Foreign are:


Fage Total All-natural Greek Strained Yogurt with Strawberry


Chobani All-natural Greek Yogurt Non-fat in Strawberry

First of all, Fage is WITH Strawberry as in, the strawberry is on the side, and not in the cup. They're that proud of their plain, white, hard-packed yogurt. I liken the taste to underwear, and the sweet strawberries to a nice balancing Febreeze. Even so, the heavier cream makes it taste more like a dessert than a punishment. Chobani somehow manages to be thicker and Greekier. Is that a hint of goat cheese? It was chalky too. The white part was not as tart, and the sweet part not as sweet. Fage takes this one, because of the cockiness, the awfulness, and then the winning ending. Like Little Miss Sunshine.

The nominations for Someone Got Drunk And Dropped A Piece Of Fruit In By Accident are:


La Yogurt Probiotic Light Zero Fat in Pomegranate Berry Medley


Emmi Swiss Premium Low-fat yogurt with other natural flavors 1.5% milkfat Original Swiss Recipe in Pink Grapefruit

With its foil lid and skinny shape, La Yogurt is like Yoplait. Kind of the way Tilda Swinton resembles Cate Blanchett. Pre-mixed, for my convenience, it tastes like mixed berries and Nutrisweet. I can only guess that Probiotic means I will spend the rest of the evening with impeccable regularity. Emmi provides actual pieces of grapefruit in the first bite! They're yellow and not pink, but I am still impressed. The acidic fruit beats out the tart cream. In fact, the creamy part is probably made sweeter than most to deal with the fruit's sour poison. I happen to like grapefruit and wish it were this easy to peel and eat one. Premium indeed! Pomegranate is upset, but it loses for not trying to wow me and hiding behind the berries. Grapefruit wins!

Best Yogurt award goes to no yogurt at all. Halfway through trying these, my pizza was ready and I wanted to pay attention to the television. Rating plastic cups of active cultures suddenly became a chore and I was getting too full for cookies. I put the lids back on and kept them in the fridge. One by one, throughout the week I ate them, in remembrance of the night that I will never tell another living soul about for fear of being judged and ridiculed.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Music Veterans

I went back home to Indiana for a weekend and found an old burned cd in my sister's room. She hadn't been in there for years, and yet sitting on her dresser was a copy of Amy Winehouse's first cd. Neither of us had ever listened to it, because it was a recommendation, and it didn't have a picture of Mariah Carey on the front. It just goes to show you how hard musicians work before you get to know them.

For example, I love Matisyahu



But I loved him in the beginning, before the beard and the religious songs.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

More Show Show Show

A big thank you to all the cool people who made it out to The Living Room show last night. Postmark Cafe was abuzz with laughter and cocoa-filled bellies. For pics on that event, check out The Living Room Blog.

This whole weekend is choc-full of comedic events.

Tonight at 7:00PM we have the monthly sketch remedy for your bland personality problems:


Delusions of Spandex hosted by UCB alumni Phaea Crede and Becca Jones. Always a great time, and features Luke Thayer and The Straight Men on a regular basis, so you can't beat that.

Then grab a burger, and at 10:00PM meet me at Gotham City Improv for this spectacular variety show:



I'll be doing stand-up and featured in a short film.

On Sunday I will see this man in New Jersey do his seventy-year old thing:


which, for my wallet, is a once in a lifetime event. Following that train ride I shall cozy up in PJs and watch the Oscars, which should pave the way for bloggable hilarity. Ain't life sweet?

And happy birthday to fellow writer Matt Sears! If you want some of his hilarious brain, read his blog daily like I do.

See you soon!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Happy Talentods Day


The fact that my cell phone refused to spell Valentine's Day during texting warned me that this would be an exceptionally unromantic holiday.

If you can't bake homemade, heart-shaped pizzas with the one you love you may as well laugh really hard with your friends. There were a lot of V-day-themed comedy shows to choose from on the 14th, but I opted for the one I was in. And perhaps my phone was right--this would be a day of TALENT no matter how ODd.

The Bacivo Nuggets put on an Anti-Valentine's Day show to remember! Composed of Marcus Terry, Andy Kleiman and Jake Serlen, this all-testosterone sketch troupe added even more Axe body spray by inviting The Straight Men (Barry Rothbart, Mike Ennis and Rob O'Reilly) and special guest Cody Hess. The result was an amalgamation of original sketches, monologues and short films that had the walls of Rififi echoing with titters.

Three of the evening's performances were perfected by my presence. Even though I was a prison guard, an office temp and a straphanger, they let me wear my bright red, two-piece ensemble that I had on from work. Because guys don't care if you look like Laura Bush, ladies! They just don't.

Luke enjoyed the show from the audience, and after getting over a brief spat before the night even began (I made fun of some gal and he in turn made fun of ME. Get behind me Satan!) we decided to make an attempt at romance with a dinner for two. We were THIS close to Amalfi, the famed Italian restaurant that gets 5 stars from every co-worker I talk to. Instead we went a few doors down to the corner barbecue joint. It took a half hour to get menus and water, and a full hour after that to get food. And there were only eight other people eating. The food came out black--corn, ribs, fried chicken, CORN. We were so hungry there was not going to be the option of sending it back, and we saw the waiter so rarely we had no one to complain to but the people next to us who liked black corn. One of those diners being local music sensation Jerome Jordan.

The very next day the restaurant closed, and it all made sense why the chef was asleep while cooking, the place was completely out of seafood, the waiter was in pajamas and nobody noticed when I accidentally dropped BOTH eating utensils over the course of the meal. So ends the day that would have been Valentine's, and the curse that came with it.

Photo credit:
www.catharinechronicles.com

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Lunar Eclipse of the Sun



Did everybody see the moon tonight? How long did it take you to realize you couldn't feel your hands? On this cold, wintery evening, the moon was full and crazy things happened. Crazy things like people standing outside and staring at the sky.

Tonight was a fun night of comedy at Jeremy Hsu's Pacific Standard Experiment (3rd Wed/month @ 9:00PM, 82 Fourth Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217). I came to watch and got a bonus spot at the top of the show.

Weird moon occurrence number one: A local dog waddled over to the stage and plopped down right at my feet. It was cute for a while, but then I forgot she was there and stepped on her paw. She didn't care. When I was done performing she decided to leave. As Jason Alexander learned on Dunston Checks In, animal sidekicks get bigger laughs. But at least I have a new demographic.

Weird moon occurrence number two: I unlearned everything from grade school science. I would like to take this moment to formally apologize to Helen Hong and Diana Saez. The sun is not behind the moon, causing the moon to turn orange with its heat. You see, the Earth, moon and sun are aligned so that some part of the Earth's shadow falls directly upon the moon. When the sun is close enough to the moon to turn it colors, it is not an "EE-KLIPS" but an "UH-PAKA-LIPS", and the world is ending. Another sign of this is when oceans turn into blood.

Weird occurrence number three: by the magic of the moon I was able to recover my online calendar, showing you where I will perform next! This replaces the inferior, temporary calendar I used by Google. It only showed half of the words advertising my shows. For example, instead of "Come see a night of comedy in costume Pooh bear and other storybook characters welcome" it said, "Come see/ me Pooh". I received a note from Rss Calendar, calming my overblown ego with a friendly tech help message. My original message to them was included:

"My calendar feed is not publishing to my blogger.com website. I am a comedian, and I use Rss Calendar to show my performance schedule. Please let me know when this problem will be fixed.
Regards,
Abbi"

I like how I took care to include a closing but not a greeting, and I insisted on pointing out that I am a comedian. "Um, don't know if you guys know this, but I'm sort of a big deal. How big? Well, it just so happens that I use your service to tell an average 14 readers about the two shows I do each week. Unpaid. At venues that have dogs. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?! I invented the term 'boogerologist'! Clean up this mess soon, or I'll sick the moon on you."

Photo credit:
americanhiking.chattablogs.com

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Then you came to the wrong place. This Superbowl re-cap focuses on food, because that's what sports events mean to me. Not the pigskin.

Pig

Skins.

As promised, I set out to prove that just because I booked a show on Superbowl Sunday, it did not mean that people would not come. Nor did it mean that I could not enjoy the football festivities!

Scrabble

Festivities like Scrabble

Apples to Apples
...Apples to Apples

Jen and Jenga
...and Jenga? What kind of party is this?!

The thing that's good about a potluck is people make stuff at home. Weird stuff from their imaginations. Like Cheese dip made with Skyline Chili, or Kix squares with MnMs and marshmallows on top of fudge. Oh Amelia Bedelia, you befuddle and delight us!
Kix Treats
Pizza and Guacamole
Soda Pop
There was soda pop and a big screen for playing someone's Wii, and another screen for some funny commercials that kept getting interrupted by a football game. I had a ball.

Lucy, Deb and Abbi

A ball of yarn. Yes I did bring my knitting. It's a party, ain't it? I'm...eighty-seven.


Then I was off to the city for Robin Cloud and Cara Kilduff's show, Snatchtastic Comedy Hour at Angels and Kings!
Cara Kilduff and Robin Cloud

The gals opened the show and got comfortable on invisible props.

Rick Younger

Rick Younger closed the show to a packed room.

Audience

On the walk back to the subway station, I saw a woman fighting with her boyfriend in front of a bodega. She was swearing at him for watching the Superbowl instead of hanging out with her. The fact that he was arguing with her in the cold told me the game had ended. The honking on the street told me the Giants had won. I got on the bus for a short-cut, and as I settled in, a girl looked at her phone and read to the passengers, "They did it! The Giants won!" The whole bus cheered. If I had only announced it as I got on, I would have been the hero. Then the next man to be picked up was beaming and he, too, relayed, "Well, the Giants won, everybody."

"We know," someone muttered.

The next morning I heard security guards arguing whether the commercial with the Geckos dancing to Thriller featured Beyonce or Naomi Campbell. "Ain't you never seen Beyonce with her black wig?" No one brought up the inexplicable choice of song, the lack of saving 15% on your car insurance, or the pointlessness of the product itself. What was it again? Prunes?

So the commercials weren't up to par, the party was a little Full House, and the comedy show caused me to miss New York's best victory since Joey Chestnut ate 65 hot dogs. But the food was fantastic, the friends were plentiful, and the following show had wall-to-wall, football snubbing, die-hard comedy fans.

Would I do it again next year? Uh, does Beyonce wear a black wig?!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

GRAM tastic

Wait a minute. (scratching head) Was this the last Grammy's ever? There was so much jam-packed into the show and people said, "Fifty more years!" so often, I wondered who they were trying to convince. As long as it comes on while I'm eating Cocoa Krispies I will continue to watch it. Wait a minute. (standing up in boxers) Are they discontinuing Cocoa Krispies?!

Most of you missed it, because your brains have been numbed by the absence of television writers. You're on autopilot; an episode of "30 Rock" looks the same as "Yes, Dear", and so you spend your evenings with friends and Jenga. Before you trade your time share in Montauk on the black market for dvds of Arrested Development, allow me to re-cap:


First of all, Alicia Keys did a duet with old footage of Frank Sinatra, which used to be enough to be a show stopper



and before that a number one single.



Now it's just the appeteaser. A meager beginning, like the bad acting before an R. Kelly song.

Carrie Underwear sang a new anthem in female country artist angst that blows Nancy Sinatra's old hit* out of the water.



By the way, pregnancy is so hot right now, the next wave on stage is childbirth pose. Beyonce struck it, but Tina Turner made it famous. Oh yeah, they were there too--and that WASN'T the finale.

*Speaking of "These Boots are Made For Christopher Walken", America's favorite drag queen Amy Winehouse performed a hit and collected some awards. They tried to make her look normal, but she said no no no.



"Rehab" is the saddest, catchy song I have ever heard anyone sing. She is singing the same song as the addict on the train, only instead of a plastic bag of sandwiches she has an entourage that keeps propping her up and pointing her towards a camera. I thought her eyes rolling in the back of her head and her wobbly knees were a sign that she wasn't sober, but it turns out it's the people jumping and cheering around her after she won the award were the sign that she wouldn't be sober for another five albums.

Sean Kingston's song is cute too. I like how he has teenagers repeating that they'd be suicidal. If OJ Simpson added a 50s doo-wop beat to the prologue of "If I Did It", maybe the United States would have forgiven him. Michael Jackson, are you paying attention?

Alicia came back and had an intro by Stevie Wonder (who embarrassed her by singing her hook before she could even begin, just to show her who the diva is). The act also featured a surprise guitar solo by John Mayer, who sported the same new haircut as Rhianna. I have no picture to prove this, but here's a general idea.



There was an Aretha Franklin gospel number that required more than one choir, Josh Grobin with Andrea Bocelli for the opera fans (deaf), dueling pianos, a Cirque de Soleil performance to a Beatles montage, and two lifetime achievement awards! I got so confused about what would end this thing that I went to sleep. I think the real finale happened around five AM. 2Pac was resurrected.

The craziest thing was when they gave "Best Song of the Year" to Chocolate Rain.


Photo Credits:
abcnews.com
advocate.com
singingfool.com
z.about.com
rollingstone.com

Monday, February 11, 2008

Where Have I Been?

The more attention I pay to my millions of dollars and the spending of those millions of dollars, the less time I find to write blog posts. But I think just imagining me swimming in my vault of ones like Scrooge Mc Duck ought to tide you over until I post something insightful. In the mean time, find me here:




Bad Ass Dolls of Comedy
Stand Up NY
236 W. 78th St
New York, NY 10024
$10 + 2 drinks ('cause I'm worth it)

Saturday, February 2, 2008

The Real Half-time Show

I notice a lot of comedians have foolishly planned to be on comedy shows on the night of The Superbowl. I happen to be one of them.



At first I thought that everyone was like me. They know the Superbowl is coming, but they do not jot down the actual date, so it sneaks up on them. They neither care about sports stats nor do they remember Oscar trivia regarding Sylvester Stallone's career (excluding the actual film, Oscar). But it turns out there is more to football than friends and fried chicken. There are commercials and beer and celebrities lip synching during half-time.

Well my friend, my jokes have more zing than a Justin Timberlake crotch shot, and Angels and Kings has more beer varieties than an international frat house. And I just knooow there's going to be karaoke at the Starlette party afterwards. So watch the kick-off at 6:18PM, bump chests and then come over to the comedy show. Or go see Ross Hyzer at County Fair (Pianos) at 9:30PM...or Sara Benincasa and Rob O'Reilly at Sunday Soiree (Botanica Bar) at 7:00PM if you're in that area.

Just to show you that comedians are not crazy, I am going to take pictures of me having fun at my Superbowl party and then the awesomeness that goes down tonight at the Snatchtastic Comedy Hour. Because I CAN have it all! I anticipate a full turn-out at this show!
...with the Superbowl playing on the television screen behind me.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Shockers in History

Aunt Jemima was not always the woman we know and love today.



If you grew up in the 1980s (when families were too busy to make pancakes from scratch but could not yet fathom an invention as practical as the frozen Eggo waffle), then you remember her with a bandana. My private Internet investigative skills have led me to stumble onto a few more discoveries.

Before then she actually weighed a little more too.



Also, she used to be a man.



It was Danny Glover's first gig.

This is neither the time nor the place to point out that butter never goes on AFTER syrup (and most certainly not in a tiny, unspreadable square), so I will leave that for another blog and when I am less hungry, i.e. when the need to make pancakes is not blinding me.    I would, however, like to address a disturbing piece of information that has surfaced.

In an excerpt from a blog by Moss Kendrix:

Aunt Jemima was created at the end of the 1880s in Missouri, when Chris L. Rutt and Charles G. Underwood invented an instant pancake flour. Rutt created the trademark after a visit to the theater in 1889, where he saw minstrels in black face, aprons, and red bandanas performing a tune called, "Old Aunt Jemima." The song, very popular in its day, inspired Rutt to use the same image as the company logo.

Assuming that this is true, that Aunt Jemima is not a person at all, and that I have been telling rumors about Mrs. Butterworth to an imaginary confidante, then I would like to call her visual change into question. First of all, I have never heard of any chef that loses weight over time. Secondly, I don't know anyone whose aunt has hair like Mary Jenkins from 227. Marla Gibbs doesn't even wear that wig anymore. The bandana is fine. I wear bandanas. It's the name that needs work. People stopped naming their children Jemima right around the time they stopped bustin' up chiffarobes.

As for her race...well, I don't know any race or culture that should claim to be pancake experts. The Chinese make them too savory, the Indian too airy, the French too flat. Change her into an innocuous piece of fruit, call her Aunt Wanda and tell her to get it together, Baby!

Little known fact, the shampoo Phytojoba



was originally called Fight a Hobo.

Learn more about our black commercial icons on Moss Kendrix's blog here.