Humor: Very Brief Letters from the War

Also known as "The great Civil War booty call" when it was performed at the Killing My Lobster "Sex Battle" show. More recently published in the excellent The Tusk.

"My Dearest Nathaniel..."

"My Dearest Nathaniel..."

May 10th, 1863

To My Beloved Nathaniel,

I yearn for the day we win this damned war against the Union and you are returned home to me. Each day I miss you more than I thought possible. I fear that my poor heart will fairly explode from the longing I feel.

I realize you are quite busy protecting the Confederacy, but I received your most recent letter and was surprised by its brevity. It read simply, “Yo. You up?”

I asked daddy if it might be some sort of secret code, in case the Union intercepts the mail. He just said, “Oh, it’s code, all right” and took to cleaning his gun.

I for one am pleased to tell you that yes, I am “up,” though we often turn in early as we are conserving lamp oil for the war. I wait eagerly for your next letter.

All my love,

Constance

**

September 22nd, 1863:

My Desperately Adored Nathaniel,

The days we remain apart drag ever on, and the nights even more so. I did receive your last, extremely terse communique, in which you wrote, “Send a pic.”

I apologize for my tardiness in complying, but the only portrait artist daddy could find was wounded in Antietam and had to re-learn painting with his remaining hand. I hope the cherrywood frame is sturdy enough to bear the travel by horse.

I mentioned to daddy that I might just ask you to send me a “pic” in return, and he immediately took to target practice on our back forty.

All my affection,

Constance

**

January 12th, 1864

My Dearest Nathaniel,

When your delivery came, I nearly fainted: A photograph! An actual battlefield daguerreotype from the man I love!

At least, that’s what daddy says it was. He insisted on looking at it first, whereupon his face turned white and he refused to show it to me. He assured me that such a scientifically accurate rendition of you might be too much for my young heart.

Daddy even offered to return the photo to you himself. Please don’t worry for his safety, darling, for he took both hunting rifles, and that large knife he uses to castrate the mules.

I do hope I’ll see a photograph one day. Isn’t modern technology exciting?

My deepest love, your soon-bride-to-be,

Constance

*

You Must Learn This Now! / videos

You Must Learn This Now! I have a theory that creativity, at its core--stay with me, Internet, almost done--is just putting two things together that you feel like you haven't seen together before. Picasso's cubist portraits. Dickens' epic tale of a lowly orphan. And now, my mix of NBC's "The More You Know" PSAs with WW2 Nazi propaganda. You're welcome, Culture.

We released one of these in the spring as a show teaser, and saved the rest for a fallow period in the KML video production schedule. In a break from our usual release process, we released them first on Funny or Die, one-a-day for a week, to establish more of a presence there. Let's say it worked.

I got to work with many of my favorite KML members on these, including DP Jon Burton, VFX guru Ty Bardi, and of course gifted, funny actors Millie DeBenedet, Calum Grant, and Jon Wolanske, the latter of who stepped in to bail us out of a last-minute casting crisis, killed his role, and then went back to his day job a block away. Like a boss.

I costumed this shoot myself, by the way, driving all over the Bay Area asking wardrobe departments if they had any Nazi uniforms. That's a story in and of itself.

American Art Academy of Art / video

Screen Shot 2013-09-13 at 4.10.08 PMBless Killing My Lobster for giving me giving me the opportunity to dig my own holes. My latest comedy short was featured in KML's Spring 2013 mainstage show, Killing My Lobster Learns a Lesson. The vid's a parody of college and technical school ads that makes fun of art school as a career choice.Screen Shot 2013-09-13 at 4.08.19 PMThis vid could not have been made without the contributions of Francine Torres, a hilarious actress and fantastic theater instructor who actually plays a theater instructor in this vid. She saw the opportunity to give her students some real-world experience, helped us to shoot at her workplace and offered her students as PAs and background players. Two of her students are actually leads in this piece--I'll let you figure out which two. Oh, and I'm in this one, briefly. I forgot to cast the Advertising instructor, and when we got to that scene, I strapped on a froofy scarf and took one for the team. At least I got the hairline right.Screen Shot 2013-09-13 at 4.07.50 PMOn a sadder note, this may well be the last project I get to work on with my regular KML production partner, Jonathan Burton, as he's since moved to NYC. Hopefully not!

PS a disclaimer: I have a lot of talented, successful friends who studied art, and there are several good art schools here in San Francisco. But there are one or two that are kind of questionable, and one for-profit university that (and I could be wrong about this) doesn't make its money from tuition so much as from being the #1 real-estate holder in the city. Just saying.

YOU MUST LEARN THIS NOW (new video!)

And the videos keep on coming! I wrote this one for Killing My Lobster Learns a Lesson, KML's latest sketch comedy show. This is the first of a series of videos that accompanied the show's sold-out run here in San Francisco.

It's not every day that "What if the Nazis made 'The More You Know' PSAs?" crosses my mind (I swear!), but once it did, show director Jon Barcellos and head writers The Bardi Twins trusted me to go for it. Further props go to to my DP and production partner Jon Burton, VFX maven Ty Bardi (who gave us the amazing visual punchline at the end) and actor Jon Wolanske, who stepped in at the last minute to just kill it.

Aaaaaand Back To The Wacky Stuff

I like the corporate gigs, no doubt, not least of which because they let me cherish the other projects (where I get to cut loose and get silly) all the more. Here's my latest of the latter, Babies on a Plane. Made for the latest Killing My Lobster show, Killing My Lobster Chops Down the Family Tree, it's a parody that you'll get pretty quickly. I made it mostly in Photoshop, mashing up found photos with a still-shoot featuring KML Actor Andy Alabran. Throw in some royalty-free stock music, intermediate-level sound engineering, excellent VO work from Andy, Allison Johnson, and resident KML Voice-Of-God Calum Grant, chuck it all into iMovie, and the rest is comedy. In theory.

Between this, Bowie, and Human Centipede, I'm on my way to becoming the "Still-Vision" (patent pending) comedy guy. 'Cause the big money is in comedy that doesn't move much, amirite?

Enjoy!

Lucha Libre Purim!

Some of my comedy videos, even *I* can't believe I made them. Others, I can't believe how good they turned out. This one is in both of those categories, to the extreme.

Unbelievable because it was inspired by, off all things, the Jewish holiday of Purim, and created for the annual KML show produced in that holiday's honor.

Good because I handed off my outline and few storyboards to the talented Bardi Twins, a husband/wife writing team (who are also an animator and a librarian to boot!).

Ty and Gina turned it onto a killer script with layers of inside jokes, then cranked out an SFX-heavy blood-and-guts ad spot for the ages. In Spanish! Add a pitch-perfect VO from Lobster alum Jon Wolanske and we could do no wrong.

Think we can't do edgy comedy based on something you'd normally see in a synagogue? This video suggests otherwise. Imagine what we could do with Flag Day.

SABADO!

"Coffee Wars" boils over!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMqutKBS5iE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3] I've spent a sizable chunk of my spare time this past year writing and teaching for Killing My Lobster, the Second City of San Francisco. And while I feel like I spent the first few months making my bones, earning the respect of my talented co-writers and our equally gifted actors and directors, I like to think I've gone on to acquit myself over this year's shows.

The latest, and possibly most satisfying, example of this is the film I wrote and produced for Killing My Lobster Holds the Mayo, their final show of the year. The film is called The Coffee Wars and it's a Ken Burns parody, showcasing the rivalry between two of the best-known (and my favorite) artisan coffee brands in town.

It's blown up beyond all (well, my) expectations thus far, garnering over 8,00014,000 hits in less than three days, and crazy amounts of Twitter chatter. It's even attracted a hater or two, which is always a sure sign of online heat.

Kudos to director Rand Courtney, actors Fred Wickham and Sarah Mitchell, and the rest of the superb cast, crew, and musicians who made this film such a joy to make and, I hope, to watch. With apologies to Joan Baez.