FCW Society Show! Lil' Bit O': Lauren Anderson

So, I'm doing research for my show on KFAI next week (yes, I have only left myself a week to prepare this show. I'm sure I'll be fine! I have improvisation skills!) and in a google search for comedian Lauren Anderson, a contemporary of mine and company member of Brave New Workshop, I found this awesome article about her performance at the Ivey Awards in 2007. Watch the video! I adore Lauren - she's obviously extremely talented and hilarious and she's such a good soul, too. Freakin' Cool.

So, now I've decided to do posts on some of the women I'm interviewing (it depends on the goods I can find about ya online, ladies). Okay, not interviewing - I'm no journalist - having a conversation with. I'm not going to give everything away, so it's just going to be called "Lil' Bit O'(FCW's Name Here)"


Photo from Star Tribune.

Reclaiming my Comic-hood.

After a Facebook Status Comment (I love that 10 years ago that phrase would have made NO SENSE) a friend left me last night about how crappy the comedy was at the open mic he attended, the last nail was in the coffin. Well, at least the third or fourth to last nail - the comedy world needs me. I can no longer just keep my hilariousness to myself and those immediately around me. I have a freak flag to fly and it's gotta be on the giving end of laughter. I think this might be my Dharma that Deepak has been telling me about.

I just watched Patton Oswalt's "Werewolfs and Lollipops" on the recommendation of a friend. It was funny, yes, Patton is an endearingly funny dude - but I have to admit I never heard of him before Ratatouille and I could only hear that little rat's voice say "I want to fill your hoo-ha with my goof juice" or whatever the phrase was. But he was funny enough to inspire me to write a little bit. So, here's a little thing I wrote up tonight. It's not necessarily funny on the read, but in my head with timing and facial expressions and such, I like it. Basically, stop me if you've heard this one before:

So the other night I have to do my laundry because it's been, like, a year. But I get motivated because I've garnered the nickname "Orphan Courtney" with my friends because my clothes are so dirty. I go downstairs into the basement in my building and I notice one of the light bulbs is still out - has been since before I stopped doing laundry. So there's one other light bulb that's working and I think, "what if that light bulb goes out while I'm down here? And I'm halfway through a load of laundry? And I don't know where the lightswitch is? And the deformed serial murderer that lives next to the boiler comes out of his wasp's nest to slice my head off with a sickle?" So I'm loading the clothes into the washer and I look up at the windows. They're those little windows that are right next to the ground - basement windows - and I look up at them to make sure there are no zombies looking in at me. Then I turn around to make sure the deformed man isn't there. You want what I'm smokin', huh? And then... as I'm loosening up the load in the washer - you want it good and loose to make sure those suds get in every crevice of your stinky clothes. Then, I fart. *noise* I break the creepy silence with a fart. And then I think, "oh, this is no horror movie. I'm in a buddy comedy." Okay okay. So then I feel safer!

Baby's First Slam Poem

I did it, I slammed. Although Wonder Dave informed me you can't have props/costumes in Slam which I did in the form of the namesake of the piece. I got a decent amount of praise for the poem last night, which I wrote in about an hour right before the show. Some dude who looked like the Ska Militia Santa Claus (he had a red beret and checkers somewhere in his outfit, sported a fluffy white beard and a jolly belly) loved it and asked if it was online. Here you go:

What.

Are you laughing at me or my tin-foil hat?
Because who are you to judge fashion, dressed like that?
A stiff suit and a tie, pressed to fool and impress,
‘Cause your overpaid PR guy tells you how to dress?

I mean, really, what’s so funny
What are you, the popular kids I was trained to fear
And crave to be like In my formative years
By sucking down cigarettes and swilling beer?
To insure my addiction to another ball and chain
Like buying into the idea that without high fashion, life is pain.

Because if I don’t buy my hat new
To help keep the economy afloat
I’m drinking the sweet nectar of the wrong kind of powered mix and wasting my time in the sinking love boat?

Oh, I’m lookin’ at you, pal, sideways - and all your shadowy friends
Pockets overstuffed with my late and later credit card payments
Hemming and Hawing about what is really going on
And jumping on the name-calling to tell me right is wrong.

So I “live life” from paycheck to paycheck
and I guess I gotta do it for the bennies
The ones that keep my health in check;
Oh no, I’m working for the pennies.

I fell for it! Ya got me there. The artist’s life
Really isn’t life at all or realistic; it’s suffering and strife.
I’ve been distracted by your shiny metal object of television
While you keep a watchful eye above the pyramid prism.

Yet the more I open my curtains to look outside,
The more I see how the world is this assembly line
And those who break free, if not shot and killed,
Might be taken to camp and “not tortured” or pilled!

The bribes and the promises of international bankers
And the unnecessary production of a gazillion oil tankers
Keep us all punching in day in and day out
To earn just a little money and even less personal clout.

But, see, my hat is transmitting to me the truth!
A divine message from far beyond
That life is not a race of rodents uncouth
And the best lays are not always blonde.

I want to believe it when I’m told that every vote counts
Along with everything else in ginormous amounts.
Yes I bought into the idea that the more user-friendly is a Mac
But I don’t think that wire-tapping is the way to get my safety back.

So you can sit there on your court of high-ranking Illuminati
And tell me that she’s qualified because Sarah Palin is a hottie,
But I know words and I know when the space between means nothin’
So don’t for an instant think this ticker isn’t clicking away at somethin’.

I don’t need money because I’ve got intuition.
And I don’t need a career because I’ve got a mission.
I’ve got goals and I’ve got dreams and I’ve got a mean to inspire ‘cause after the nuclear holocaust, we’ll all be sharing the same trash-can fire.

Have. You. Heard.
We Are Not Alone.
I am here in a room with you and there are people outside and there are people in homes.
There are people in cars. And bars. And czars in thrones.
And desks that sit obediently in fronna drones.
But We. Are Not.
Alone.

Because really, I find it impossible to believe
That we were made millions of years ago
Then God, or whatever, chose to leave
Us alone to fight, kill, and figure it out on our own.

I stopped shaving with Occam’s Razor because Anything. Is. Possible.

The prescription is asking questions
And my doctor’s name is Leary
For possibility and thought, he’s a bastion
And for what you call conspiracy theory.

So along comes a dude asking for change
Putting his hand up for the whole nation to high-five
But after all this shit, it’s hard to rearrange
The programming and allow ourselves to let him make us feel alive.
And worth it and safe and comfortable – do we dare?
Or is it a thin blanket of hope over a black hole of despair?

So, my hat’s off if indeed and without doubt you are true
And not a shadowy overlord like most that came before you.
But I feel pretty solid in my faith of all the praise that you warrant.

To quote my friend Brett
Who's as perceptive as they get
“He isn’t black – he’s transparent.”

- Courtney McLean, 10/27/2008

SHOOOWWWWZZZZ

Holy Crap. I need an assistant.

Thank goodness Wonder Dave wrote on my Facebook wall about tonight's show or else, I would have been a no-show and I'm sure there would have been a black mark on my Twin Cities performance rep because you do not want to let Wonder Dave down. This is not to say that he is a relentless bookie or anything. I just seriously don't want to let him down because I feel like he wants me to get up and do slam poetry (yeah, I know, WHAT? me? A poetess? maybe) and seems to love me and lord knows I don't want that love to wane due to my famous flakiness. Flakiness is fear. Or over-booking. Or not having a car. Luckily, this show is right near my house (no you may NOT come over afterwards. Oh, okay, for ONE drink. And a shot.)

TONIGHT! at 8pm
At The Beat Coffeehouse
1414 West 28th Street in Uptown (1/2 block East of Hennepin)


(This is listed as an "Erotic Party" on Facebook... I am not promising anything, but after a drink and a shot at my house, who knows what can happen?!?)

And tomorrow night??? OH YEAH!



Your Friendly Neighborhood Rockstars are BACK at Bryant Lake Bowl!

Tuesday, October 28 at 7pm
(doors at 6pm)
Bryant Lake Bowl
810 W. Lake Street, Minneapolis!

PS - the BLB site lists us at 10pm - NO! WE ARE AT 7PM!!!!

This month's show is "The Music Hour." Yours truly is hosting AND accompanying on the banjo the irreverent Mr. Mike Fotis as he yells at a desk (and it's the funniest thing you ever did see). Also telling are Amy Salloway, Ben San Del, Joseph Scrimshaw, Dave Mondy, and Allegra Lingo.

We'll be living up to our name - you may as well put money on it.

See you TONIGHT OR TOMORROW!!!

My New Hero.

I will credit Margaret Cho's book "I'm The One That I Want" as being the catalyst for my solo performance career. I read it in 2001 on the plane coming back from the MTV VJ audition in San Fran on which I decided to embark at the very last minute. That's right - I wanted to be an MTV VJ. What. I made it to the second round, Haters! And promptly got cut when I stammered after they asked me what the difference was between Tori Amos' feminism and Christina Aguilera's "What A Girl Wants."

So when I saw Ms. Cho's film of the very same name was playing on TV a year or so later, I cleared my schedule to watch. The first ten minutes left a bad taste in my mouth. Cho's fanbase is crazy! They cheer for every sentence that comes out of her mouth and upon my first impression, she milks it (who wouldn't?) and feeds off the gay-fan (as in devoted followers) contingency by talking about Karl Lagerfeld (sp? oh, wait, I don't care) and his fan (as in this). She could barely get into her routine without 10 seconds (which is looooong) of screaming per line. Boooooring, I snap-judged, and shut it off.

The next few years I didn't bother to check out anymore of Cho's stuff. I still loved her as far as being a popular female comedian and because, I mean, she's obviously a rad freak:



And that picture's not even that freaky. And any comedian with so many fans surely cannot be so mediocre. I mean, I don't think music is like comedy - I think comedy fans, especially since stand-up is recently so reviled in the pop-culture community, are a little more discerning than popular music fans. Of course, Larry The Cable Guy probably proves me wrong. Anyway, I thought, hey, Cho's not for me, but that doesn't mean she isn't still a goddess.

Fast forward to this past weekend, what I like to call my "comedy bender" weekend (which truthfully goes back to the previous week with me holing up in my house watching the entire second season of the best show on TV right now plus all the DVD extras, which my friends will tell you, I never watch the extras). I Netflixed (welcome to the world of verbs, Netflix) Bill Hicks and Margaret Cho for this weekend's study of Western comedy for my own planned career reinvention and return to the realm of stand-up (yes, folks. Starting tonight. See above post, which I will write in the future, today). Now, I know, love, adore, and want to be Bill Hicks. The man was the fucking comedy messiah, no bones about it. He spoke the truth and just happened to make it funny (and gritty!). "It's funny because it's true." Anyway, Bill Hicks will eternally be the reluctant mentor I never had. Of course, he would probably hear my material and be utterly offended by that.

But back to Margaret Cho: I rented "I'm The One That I Want" and made myself sit through the opening ten minutes again because I felt like, with her like 4 or 5 shows she's done since then, I'm obviously missing out. And despite the parts in the middle that were like faux-contemplative in that annoying one-woman show kinda way, I get down on my knees to you, Margaret, and ask for your hand in comedy colleague marriage. Very different from Hicks, but still enjoyable and there's a lot to learn from this lady. I've got her next shows lined up for more Netflixing in the near future.

So, what did I do yesterday besides soak in the comedy? Write comedy. FOUR stream-of-consciousness pages in 12-point (might have even been 10) Times New Roman. That's a lot for me, being that I rarely write at all for someone that identifies as a writer (which isn't totally true - I was looking through my computer with the feeling of, "oh, I have done a lot more than I give myself credit for." And this entry is extremely wordy too, so that must count for something). I wrote angry, I'm-sick-of-taking-it comedy, a la Hicks. We'll see if it ever gets performed... I've got a whole one-woman show "in here" about how I feel that as a white woman from the suburbs of Orange County, I have nothing to say. Except maybe about the viciousness of people. Hm. Anyway. I also painted, played banjo, and gratified myself. A very productive day.

So, Margaret Cho, you have a new devoted follower. Can't wait to experience more and thank you for putting your ovaries on the line to pave the way for more people to have the courage to stand behind a mic and make people scream, feel, think, and most importantly, laugh.


(Seriously, do me, Cho)

Shirts!

A silly video made by some friends of friends in LA:

Remember how I wanted to get a EU passport?

That desire is now re-kindled, thanks to Eddie Izzard stating he wants to run for parliament in a decade (scroll down). OH KAY!

via Parabasis.

Courtney + Library = Mrs. Library!

I love books. I don't read them often enough or I get caught up reading like 5 or 6 at a time and not finishing because I'm under this perpetual illusion that I don't have time for anything, but really, WHAT AM I DOING? But I love books. I love the look of a lot of them on the shelves. My friends The Jacksons have loads of books all lined up in cases right next to each other and I just think it makes their home look so classy. But, due to money and in the interest of ecological responsibility and because I am visualizing myself entering into the nomadic lifestyle soon with increasing freqency, I don't really buy too many books. Enter, of course, the library.

My point is, I picked up Comic Insights, a book about the art of stand-up comedy, because I want to try my hand at comedy again. It skeeves me out to tell people I'm a comic because of the visuals that people come up with in their heads and the memories of horrible comedians they've experienced and the people they know that are comedians and can't turn it off. I'm excited about the prospect of returning to the stage, especially with some time away from it and a little life experience under my belt. And a little more confidence, though I do hold the fear that comedy might drain even that out of me as it is wont to do. But as confidence is something that waxes and wanes when you worry about what other people think about you, I'm working on making that a non-issue.

Back to the library - once I get settled in the new place, I will be renting DVDs of comic masters I admire, like Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, Bill Cosby, Ellen Degeneres, Margaret Cho, George Carlin, and this guy:



Because I don't want to be anything if I can't be a visionary and I might as well learn from the best.