Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Colbert Your Soul



More than six months ago, I made four incredibly stupid entries in the contest to appear on The Colbert Report, all of which are still up at http://community.colbertnation.com/profile/michaeldare. The website provided a zip file of dozens of clips of Colbert that we were invited to edit ourselves into. I went nuts. The front page of the contest is still up at http://community.colbertnation.com/, where one of my videos remains featured, but with NO MENTION OF THE CONTEST. It's like it never happened. No winner has been announced and nobody from the site has appeared on The Colbert Report. It's like the whole thing was a cheap publicity stunt to get a bunch of free material posted to the Comedy Central Site with no intention of ever letting someone on the air. Maybe the moderators didn't really like any of them. Many were even worse than mine. I'm not saying I should have won, I'm saying WTF!? Pick someone else, I don't care, I need closure. I can't live forever with this pathetic dream that someday I'm going to be on The Colbert Report. Would I have to appear as the lunatic character I play in the videos or could I just be myself or, holy self-revelation, maybe there's no difference. Would it be okay to turn my appearance into performance art? Could I jump over the desk and try to strangle him and get taken away in a straightjacket? That would be cool. Right now, life is like a  production of Waiting for Godot with Stephen Colbert as Godot.

Idea #2: We start out having a normal conversation which leads to something like this...

SC: How do you like New York?

MD: A lot of people on the streets asking for money.

SC: Why don't you just ignore them like I do?

MD: I wish I could. I mean when YOU ignore a beggar, it's because you think they should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and they'll probably just spend it on booze, but when I ignore a beggar, it's because I don't have any money to give them.

SC: Good. YOU'D probably spend it on booze.

MD: Let me ask you something, Stephen. How much money do you have in your pocket right now?

SC: I don't know, why?

MD: Because I'd like you to give it to me so I can give it to beggars when I leave the studio.

SC: I don't understand. What do I get out of it?

MD: Satisfaction at having helped somebody who needs it?

SC: BLANK STARE

MD: Okay, look, you can film me giving the money away. That way you can use the footage to show how benevolent you are without ever having contact with an actual homeless person.

SC: So I would look good to liberal dupes in my audience and all it would cost me is the money in my wallet?

MD: You got it.

Stephen hands me 20 five dollar bills.

EXT. COMEDY CENTRAL

I give a five dollar bill to the first homeless person I see.

MD: You see, Stephen, that really felt good.

The homeless person puts a knife to my throat. I give them all the money.

MD: Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would.

THE END

My ludicrous entries in the "Appear on The Colbert Report by Cutting Yourself into our Footage Contest"

Lunatic on a bus

Lunatic in a basement

Kno-o-o-o-ow!

No-o-o-o-o-o!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

May 20: Draw Muhammad Day


Dareland offers these ASCII and Emoticon versions of Muhammad to cut and paste into your communications on this important day.

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These Mohammed smileys or emoticons are called ‘Mocons’ or ‘Frowneys’. 

Mocons aka Frowneys are the most efficient way to digitally propagate the maximum amount of Mohammed imagery per byte.
Muhammad (((:~{>
Muhammad playing Little Orphan Annie (((8~{>
Muhammad as a pirate (((P~{>
Muhammad as Moshe Dayan (((P~{>
Muhammad on a bad turban day ))):~{>
Muhammad with sand in his eye(((;~{>
Muhammad wearing sunglasses (((B~{>
Muhammad giving the raspberry. (((:~{>
Giving Muhammad the raspberry. ;-P 
Mohammad with a lit bomb in his turban *-O)):~{> zh3gl.jpg
Mohammad with a lit bomb in his turban *~@:~{>
Mohammed, full of booze and pork, pukes up Allah (((:~Oالله
Intoxicated Mohammed (((‡o{Þ
High Mohammed ((( ¦o) >
The devil Mohammed  ]:~{>
Sombrero Mohommed ⊂∫≡(:~{>>
Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. *@(((:~{>>
Mohammed with a nuclear bomb in his turban. @=(((:~{>
Carmen Miranda Mohammed ڨڭڿۺ((:~{>
Muhammed without beard O:-|
Muhammed without beard; or Jesus O:-)
Muhammed having a vision) O8-)
Muhammed with goatee) O:-)*
Muhammad pissed off that his favourite goat ran away (((B-|>
Muhammad being shot by Starship Enterprise =-o * * * (((:~{>
Mohammed with a lit fuse coming out of his turban *-(((:~{>
Mohammed on a *really* bad turban day )8(:~{>
Muhammad sees a Danish cartoonist !((((8~{o>
Muhammad turns Christian (((+:~{>
Muhammad imitates Charles Manson ((((x8~{>
Muhammad wears his Johnny Carson “Great Carsoni” turban (((0))):~{>
Muhammad after going quail hunting with Dick Cheney (:(:(:((8~>:::::::::::::
Saudi Arabian/oil shiek version of Muhammad (($$(((:~{>
Muhammad wearing his personalized designer turban (((MOE)));~{>
Muhammad wearing his “elevator” turban ((((((((((((((;~{>
Osama bin Laden dressed up as Muhammad on Halloween (((:~{>

Sunday, May 16, 2010

How to Work With a Writer the Carl Gottlieb Way


by Michael Dare

Carl Gottlieb put it best, though the tape wasn't rolling, we were just hanging out, having bagels on Fountain, so all I've got to give you is my lame memory of what he said. You've got to believe me that Carl put it better because he's one of the greatest writers in Hollywood (Jaws, The Jerk, WGA hotshot) so he should know. He tried to explain to me what the relationship was between a producer and a writer, or a book editor and a writer, or a newspaper editor and a writer, ANY relationship in which someone is paying someone else to write.

The writer knows what he's supposed to be doing, writing, and if he's a writer, he knows how to do it, rain or shine, writing will happen.

But his boss? Whoever's PAYING him to write? What do they have to do to encourage the emergence of the best possible writing from their employee?

To discover the answer, all you have to do is create an analogous situation, another job where someone is hired to build something, let's say a wall instead of a script, using bricks instead of words.

As the employer, you've hired someone to lay those bricks. You've seen other walls the bricklayer has built and were impressed, which is why you hired them.

But on the first day of work, they show up with weights attached to their arms. You watch them work and can't help noticing they're going slow, sweating enormously, and taking breaks every ten minutes. You go up to them and say "Hey, why don't you take those weights off your arms?"

"Good idea," says the mythical bricklayer, "why didn't I think of that?" And so he takes off the weights and whatayuh know, he picks up speed, stops sweating, and takes less breaks.
Writers use their brains, not their brawn, so it's the duty of anyone hiring a writer to remove the weights from their brains. Find out what they're worrying about. Relieve the worries and the writing will go better. You want maximum brainpower, you won't get it from someone worried about ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING, important or trivial, whatever it is, the gin soaked mind of your average writer will be able to justify NOT writing by any means necessary. You don't cure writer's block by building anything, you do it by tearing something down, whatever dam is jamming up the imagination, send out the brain commandos to obliterate the hindrance.

So ask your writer if there's anything bothering them. Let 'em get it off their chest, then do something about it. Yeah, hiring a writer can actually be harder than being one. Being a writer, the only demons you have to battle are your own.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

10 Questions for Neil Innes



The last time I saw Neil Innes was with Monty Python at the Hollywood Bowl and he showed the audience his butt after singing Sit on my Face and Tell Me That You Love Me, so I wasn't expecting reverence when I bopped to see him at The Triple Door, an incredibly beautiful refurbished burlesque house blocks from the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. I'm not saying you have to be drunk to see a show there, just that happy hour should legally have to precede every concert in America.

I'm happy to report that seeing Neil Innes live is a joyous experience. Whether you know his work or not - and if you don't, what the hell's the matter with you - his warmth and humor are sure to win you over. What's overwhelming about seeing Neil Innes in concert isn't just the astounding catalogue of entertaining material, his mastery of parody, and the toe-tapping rhythms of the classic songs. It's not just the jokes and stories from his extraordinary career or the simple pleasure of seeing that guy from Monty Python and the Holy Grail sing "He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp. Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken. To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away and his limbs all hacked and mangled, Brave Sir Robin." All of that I was expecting.

What surprised me, what you rarely learn from simply seeing someone in concert, is the basic core of decency that shines through everything Neil Innes does, a philosophy that somehow makes none of the jabs nasty at all but a plea from the heart for compassion toward your fellow man. I came to be enthralled by the entertainer and left in admiration of the human being. When he sings "Old Age Becomes Me," you'll think Damn right.

He placates his rabid fans with ancient music hall songs, highlights from The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and the Rutles (WARNING: if you listen to the Rutles' Archeology before hearing the Beatles, you will never, ever, be able to figure out who was making fun of who), but it's mainly the new material that rocks. At various times you will be reminded of Randy Newman, John Prine, the Beatles, the Kinks, XTC, Elton John, and Tom Lehrer, a rockin' sorta heartfelt folkie political activist with a PhD level sense of humor.

I love seeing Mick Jagger in concert but I'm not really sure I like the guy. He seems like sort of a dick. Though their music is diametrically different, the vibe off Neil Innes is more like that of Bruce Springsteen. You don't just love the music. You love the humble sincerity. I liked him so much that now I feel bad for all the cheap laughs I got at his expense in the above video.

At one point, after moving from the guitar to the piano, he noticed the guitar stand was blocking my view and he got up to move it, just for me. How can you not love a performer who does that? Go out and see him if he's anywhere near. Maybe he'll move a prop for YOU.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Scumbags of the Week

http://www.oregonjail4judges.org/Oregon_Supreme_Court_web.jpg
The Oregon Supreme Court who ruled today that medical marijuana patients can be fired from their jobs even if they have a state issued card authorizing its use.