Hey guys! First: read this really well-done and parsed out Mashable article about SOPA (I know if you’re reading this you didn’t black out your blog, but you can still sign a petition and make your opposition known.)

Next! Let’s love Internet freedom with the next episode of ‘Why Are We Not Best Friends?,’ my UStream show. (Note: Not connected to SOPA in any way! But we’ll talk about it for sure - important issue, how could we not?)

My guest today at 5 pm EST is HelloGiggles writer and comedian Meghan O’Keefe.

GO HERE THEN AND WATCH.

Wikipedia’s down. What the hell else are you supposed to do? (Scary, right? OPPOSE SOPA.)

Super fun announcement:

A little bit ago, I wrote this piece for Thought Catalog about how I’ve never really had a long-lasting best friend. There are tons of amazing people in my life, but I always find it awkward transitioning from friendship to SUPER BEST FRIENDSHIP. How can I find a true best friend?

Along this line, I’ve partnered with UStream to do a livestream video talk show every other week! It’s called “Why Are We Not Best Friends?” and will feature me talking to a new special guest about why we’re not best friends and what friendship means to them, along with anything else that comes up. I imagine comedy, love lives, friendship queries and whatever else we’ve each got going on.

(original photo by Mindy Tucker)

I’M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT IT! Best part is it’s live so you can all come watch it happen and ask questions/interact with the show, or watch the recording later, which I’ll link to here.

FIRST EPISODE IS TOMORROW (THURS, JAN 5.) AT 7 PM EST. MY GUEST IS COMEDIAN MYQ KAPLAN (LAST COMIC STANDING, THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN).

Here’s the link where you can watch!

“I believe in miracles, since you came along, you sexy thiiiiing,” Hot Chocolate once sang, but sadly, that’s not the ‘Miracle’ song the Maccabeats chose to cover this holiday season.

YOU GUYS: My email inbox has been blowing up. It seems the people want me to comment on the new Maccabeats video pretty badly. On Twitter, I called ‘Miracle’ (the Matisyahu version) the group’s ‘Back 2 Basics’ ala Christina Aguilera — they’re going back to what they do best, reminiscent of their start. It’s simple, fresh, yet somehow still exciting. I like it, but I don’t have a whole bunch to say about it OTHER THAN:

MY NEW FAVORITE MACCABEAT IS THE STAR KIND OF.

Look, I can pretty much assume at this point that any Maccabeat soloist I highlight will become the star of the next Maccabeats video. It’s a gift I have — and with great power comes great jew-sponsibility.

Here is my new favorite. I call him Young Maccabeat or Lil’ Beat. Sometimes I make a typo and spell Maccabeats as “Maccabears,” so in my head, he’s like a little Maccabear cub. A Baby Beat. WHERE DID HE COME FROM? GUYS I LOVE HIM. HIS SMILE IS LIKE MARSHMELLOWS. I WANT TO ADOPT HIS WHOLE FAMILY.

THREE THINGS BABY BEAT AND I COULD DO IF WE HUNG OUT:

3. We could watch a cute, non-threatening movie like ‘Definitely, Maybe’ or ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ and not cuddle.

2. We could get virgin daquiris and I could talk all about my boy troubles while he sympathetically listens and only says, “Oh my god, I know” after everything I say, or compliments my H&M scarf.

1. We could go look at puppies in the window of shops and I could take a bunch of Instagram pics of him next to a fluffy dog with Facebook captions like ‘OMG CUTE OVERLOAD WHAAAT.’

—

Here’s a haiku for him:

Baby beat, Lil cub / Are you a freshman? Think so / Legal right? Jail would suck

—

Further comments:

MAYIM BIALIK, LUV U BB GIRL. CUTE KIDDOS

Extra Extra! Uri has too many Newsie caps. Read all about it. <3 <3

Immanuel (deep voice!), Shefa, Ginger Jew, astronaut who I forget your name and who was the other deserving star of this video and the usual dudes, sorry if this post “ages you out” in favor of a younger ‘beat. You’re all still MILFs to me. (The “M” stands for Maccabeats.)

Other soloists who I know I haven’t given any love to in these posts: Please know I have dirty thoughts about you too. Know it in your hearts.

OKAY I’M SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING A BOOK, and instead I wrote this. No more videos until my book comes out.

Also, seriously, do I believe in miracles? Sure do, guys. SURE. DO.

Byeeeeee.

Another funny lady graces my NYT Mag column, “Famous on the Internet.”

I went to see it because I am attracted to Jesse Eisenberg, but I knew nothing about the plot. I like Jesse’s acting and I like his writing (McSweeney’s) and I thought it’d be cool to see him act in something he’d written, live in front of my face.

Turns out, the play was very good! If you liked the dynamic between Justin Bartha and Jesse in Holy Rollers, you will like this. Or if you just like the idea of Justin Bartha shoving Jesse’s head at his dick in red American Apparel tighty-whiteys while on LSD, you will like this also. Or if you like the fact that Jesse’s character calls sucking Justin’s character’s dick “nice like if we shook hands for a really long time,” then you will like this play.

I would watch the two of them act alongside each other in pretty much anything so I was very entertained. The script was seeping in Woody Allen’s influence (in terms of how people acted and spoke, but also the complexity of the relationships) but that’s not a bad thing at all considering I love Manhattan and Hannah and her Sisters.

Jesse’s character is totally exhausting and bananas, and he talks with his hands and in this way that is so specific and intense — maybe because it’s at a small theater so you really feel like you’re in the apartment with the characters. He is hard to watch sometimes. Because of his dynamic with Justin Bartha, the people I saw it with thought Jesse’s character was gay, but that Justin’s wasn’t. I thought they both were. My boyfriend thought neither of them were.

Things I learned:

Camille Mana, who plays the title character, is adorable.

Loving Jesse Eisenberg probably means I would have been into Woody Allen if I was a twenty-something in the 70s.

Justin Bartha is hilarious. The Hangover is stupid for not having more of him.

I wish I could write a play. (I have books on how to do it and I’ve written sketch shows and spec scripts, I just have never tried to write a whole play before.)

In all, I give Asuncion four out of four Jesse Eisenbergs! (This is how I rate most things, based on how many Jesse Eisenbergs it gets. This bagel I’m eating, for instance, only gets 2 1/2 Jesse Eisenbergs.)

We didn’t stay afterwards to meet them or anything because 1) it seemed like a bunch of high school girls were waiting (the play was pretty sexual and dark at times so it got me thinking about why plays don’t have a rating system like movies do) and 2) I always feel weird meeting people in “fan” situations. I’d just rather enjoy them from afar.

If you’re in NYC before November 27, go see it! We did student rush and got tickets for a discount right before the show. Worth it!

Edit: Oh, jk, it’s extended until December 18, so there you go. Also, I see everyone in the world stays after and takes a photo with him. Hmmmm. Maybe I should go again?

Josh is an amazing human being and a hilarious comedian. This is his debut CD. If you buy it, you will laugh your butt off.

Let me know if you get it and like it!

An Open Letter to Brad Pitt From the ‘Moneyball’ Props Department

I don’t know if all this prop destruction was written into Aaron Sorkin’s script (with lines like [Billy Beane hears Art Howe isn’t going to put wildcard Scott Hatteberg in for Carlos Pena at first base and in a muted rage, he overturns his desk, destroying the prop department’s six weeks of work getting all the details right]) or if we’ve got Bennet Miller’s haphazard directing to blame. Either way, the tally of props you destroyed during filming was too high for a movie that wasn’t about destruction like 2012 or Cloverfield or Independence Day.

I wrote this tongue-in-cheek letter for Movies.com and no one gets that it’s a joke! Hurray!

popculturebrain:

Very rarely do I post something this serious minded but it’s extremely important that it be read by as many people as possible. Also that it came from the presumably forward thinking alternative comedy community is especially of note.

Below are excerpts from the original post by Poupak Sepehri, audience member at the closing Asssscat of the recent UCB Del Close Marathon in NY. 

poupak:

I wanted to talk about ASSSSCAT, the show that closed the Del Close Marathon, a huge improv festival.  During the show, comedians on stage invited audience members to tell a true story from their lives, and then improvised a set around it.   

….

He started his story by saying that he is a cook/host at Second City in Chicago (justification#1 – he is supposedly part of the community).    One evening, a very drunk (justification #2) and older (justification #3) woman was hitting on one of the waiters at Second City. This woman, who was from out of town (justification#4), gave her number to the waiter and asked him to call her (justification#5).  The waiter, not interested, shared the story with the rest of the staff and practically forced this cook/host to take the number, even giving him money for the cab (justification#6) to show up at her hotel.

The woman opens the door to her hotel room thinking it was the waiter, but SURPRISE it’s the cook/host.  She immediately asks him to leave, but he finds some BS excuse to go get her cell phone so that he can call a friend to come pick him up since he doesn’t have money for the taxi back (another murky part of the story).  She goes to get her cell phone, and makes a HUGE mistake: she leaves the hotel room door open.

….Read the rest of the post.

Halle Kiefer at Splitsider was also in attendance and shares her thoughts, which come from a more comedy insider perspective. Stephanie Streisand has also provided a first hand account and there is video of the monologue.

Thanks all, now back to your regularly scheduled Hollywood nonsense.

I hope this guy is identified. But in the meantime, this is so indicative of a larger problem. The big thing that stands out to me in this story is that he’s told it before as a funny anecdote. He doesn’t see anything wrong with what he did. And no one thought to tell him.

My friend Zach is pretty fantastic. His raps deserve way more attention.