Apr 24

An Ode to My Lost Black Knit Hat: A Remembrance – by Christa Weiss

I originally wrote this essay for a blog of odes that people had written to a beloved piece of clothing. Apparently, I wasn’t taking it seriously enough, because they didn’t end up posting it. This both baffled and mildly enraged me, but anyone who writes a serious three page essay about their 30 year old polyester leisure suit isn’t exactly someone you can reason with. Either way, I like the essay and my relentless dedication to my Black Knit Hat only grows stronger with each passing day. Read on and share in my joy and sorrow.

 


An Ode to My Lost Black Knit Hat: A Remembrance

by Christa Weiss


My black knit hat and I met while at an H&M about 2 years ago. It was love at first sight, also it was only $6. We made it through an eventful winter, through the good times and the bad. Through every cold morning, Black Knit Hat was there. Through every breezy afternoon and snowy night, Black Knit Hat was there. Through every bad hair day, time I was too lazy to comb it and all those weeks where my roots got so bad I was embarrassed to go outside, Black Knit Hat was there.

I didn’t appreciate you like I should have, Black Knit Hat! I wore you to every crappy hipster coffee house I visited in order to fit in and look cool. You were always by my side, making me virtually identical to every other crappy hipster girl. You made me feel stylish and comfortable in a world that I almost, but not quite fit into. For this I thank you Black Knit Hat!

And times my friend, they were rough. Like that time I got drunk and left you in that bar. And that other time I got drunk and left you in that other bar. And that last time I got drunk and left you in that final bar (I think). I am lost with out you Black Knit Hat, but honestly, I don’t blame you for leaving. Hopefully, you are safe and warm in a lost and found, or scavenged by some other crappy hipster girl.

Thanks for all your hard work, loyalty and dedication. I love you Black Knit Hat.


Black Knit Hat is survived by Scarf and Gloves.*




*A few days after writing this essay, Christa and Black Knit Hat were joyfully reunited when Black Knit Hat was found in the back of her boyfriend’s car. Christa and Black Knit Hat now reside in Somerville, MA with their cat, Julius.

Apr 24

UnScene Comedy Podcast: Live! With your host Shawn Carter

This week’s podcast was recorded before a live studio audience. Comics share stories about run-ins with the law.

Featuring: Ted Pettingell, Kate Ghiloni, Rob Crean, Shane McHugh and Phoebe Angle

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Apr 17

Random Word Generator Stories – by Rick Canavan

*Every week Rick uses a random word generator to pick a topic, and rambles on about it using related stories, thoughts, and questionable facts he thought he heard somewhere. Once finished he’ll look up the actual definition and see if he was in the ballpark.

random word: item

Well this is a pretty general one, an item is one thing. I have a lot of items because I am a bit of a hoarder (not in a crazy way, just in a I have been a single adult male for 13 years, and I am too lazy to throw things out.) I have been sifting through my stuff due to my impending nuptials ( I know, I’ll shut up about it eventually…) and here are some items I have come across between cleaning out my apartment and car (itemized, of course.)

  • Press clippings and show posters
    • Boston Phoenix with Comedy listings from my first week as Comic in Residence at the Comedy Studio.
    • Articles from Worcester Mag, the Weekly Dig, the Boston Globe, etc...
    • One sheet poster from the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival.
    • My first rejection letter (of many) from the Boston Comedy Festival.


One would think if I cared so much to save these things, I would have also cared enough to preserve them in a frame or a scrapbook. Instead I just piled them up in my car and let them all get a nice weathered look.

  • Notebooks
    • Used
    • Unused
    • Not belonging to me

I am astounded how many notebooks I have bought and never written a word in. I am even more astounded how many I have used only a few pages and then hidden away somewhere. I found probably 20 notebooks with the same jokes written out word for word (jokes that I had written and memorized already) and the abandoned. I have done so little actual writing of my material in notebooks, and yet I just buy them and buy them. I even found a notebook that another comic must have left at my place once. It took me a while to figure out who it belonged to until finally, many pages in, I recognized a joke of theirs. I’m not going to name the person or the joke as to not embarrass them, but I will say this. If you have lost a notebook, and been over to my place… you should work harder (really good advice to anyone, including myself.)

  • Gadgets, as seen on TV stuff
    • The Glass Wizard (2)
    • The Snuggie
    • The Cocomotion

If you are selling something, I will probably buy it if you can trick me into thinking it will improve my life. I own 2 Glass Wizards… it cleans glass!… or rather it helps you to clean glass. It’s not even like cleaning glass is my thing. My thing is to dirty glass, and then move away. The Cocomotion is like a heated blender that can only blend powdered mixes with liquids. Finally someone has taken the hassle out of making hot cocoa and instant coffee. Now it only takes a few seconds, instead of up to a minute (that being said I have used it, and will use it again.) I am a defender of the Snuggie, if it were thicker it would be the number one used blanket when I sleep (why haven’t they made a Snuggle duvet yet?!)

i

Mar 20

UnScene Comedy Podcast: Shawn Carter with guest Shane Mauss

Shane Mauss (Comedy Central, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel, Showtime) and Gary Petersen (Joy Asia) join host Shawn Carter to talk about comedy.

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Mar 20

Comic by Christa Weiss

 

 

Fun Fact: The bunny is me.

<3
Christa

 

 

 

Feb 25

Eulogizing Mottley’s – by Gary Petersen

Mottley’s comedy club was open for a short stint and it attracted the weird, the outrageous and the desperate. I spent many nights with the club, hanging around trying to get 5-minute sets to live and die by. I’d march through alleyways to the frontlines of Faneuil hall. The battlefield was a darkened basement, perfumed in stale beer farts and cabbage, where comics had the luxury to say whatever they wanted. How often do you get a job you love, you can say anything, and your bosses encourage your despicable behavior? That’s what Mottley’s was; it was unbolted, unbridled and willing to take chances. Shows like The Good Stuff with Tom Dustin, Chris Coxen and Nate Johnson’s character sketch show, and Erin Judge and Bethany Van Delft’s stylish Dress-Up Show. Going to these shows you knew anything could happen. The send-off shows for comics moving out of Boston like Shane Mauss helped instill a sense of community in the local comedy scene. When Shawn Donovan and Josh Gondelman were heading out on their first comedy road trip, Mottley’s let them do a good-bye show, only to give the boys extra money to help finance their travels.

The owners of Mottley’s Jeff Fairbanks, Jon Lincoln, and Tim Mcintire were generous, nurturing, and patient. They put this club together to give comics more than just stage time, an education. I learned not to drink alcohol and yell accusations at dart players, that and how to be a better comic. The debt I owe these men is something I can never repay. Thank you doesn’t seem to cut it. The stage is empty now, and the future is unwritten. But I have comfort knowing that the generosity and pure creative spirit of Mottley’s lives on.

Thanks

Dec 22

My Weekend on Demand Part XXXIV: Obligatory Holiday Article

Hey guys guess what I did this weekend? Not only did I not do that but I would not do that with your mother’s ten foot pole. I did some Christmas shopping this weekend and please let me emphasize the word some. Will you please let me emphasize the word some!?! I had planned on getting all of my shopping done today but I guess like the best laid plans of mice and men (not sure where that saying comes from I highly doubt a mouse’s day planner is as detailed as mine) that was not to be. I started off by going to the mall which is basically like a big giant store filled with tiny other stores inside of it, it’s like a giraffe that swallowed an elephant and you’re stuck with an all day pass to the zoo.

 

Going to the mall around Christmas time is crazy, it’s more crowded than the flag store on flag day… that’s a lot of flags. People are just walking around saying things like, “oh hey I gotta buy a present for my stupid son.” or “oh I better pick up a cd for dumb mistress.” If there’s one thing I hate it’s people. I don’t mean specific people, I mean every people. Even my closest friends and most-stalked celebrities I would not want to see at the mall while Christmas shopping. I feel like I turn into a bad person at a really crowded mall. I see a lot of people who are probably all fine normal people but just because they’re ahead of me in line or took the last free sample from Chicken X-Press I hate them and want them to get sat on by an overweight snowman.

I think I’m just feeling a lot of stress about what to get my family for Christmas. We’re all adults now and whenever we want something we just buy it for ourselves so when it comes to the holiday and we’re asking each other what we want we all have the same response, ohhhhh I don’t need anything. Really, just the fact that you want to get me something is fine. Of course if this was true then they wouldn’t be mad when I buy them comic books. That’s pretty much my thing, usually since I don’t know what other people might want I get them things that I’d like. Makes sense right? We’re a family, share the same blood so if I’d want Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory then Mama Varg’s would surely love Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory. No? Alright, another multi-colored fiesta dinnerware set it is then.

There’s always comic books and movies I want though so I usually end up being pretty easy to shop for. I can remember one year though where things didn’t turn out my way. I was rather young, probably 8 or 9 and all I wanted was a real dog. So on my list I very specifically wrote that I wanted a real life dog and then in parenthesis I put a living, breathing dog that is real and not a toy. Sure enough on Christmas day I unwrapped a box with a stuffed toy dog inside. What the fuck? How could I have been anymore specific? What a slap in the face. That’d be like if you really wanted a baby and you finally got your wife and/or some random girl you met at a renaissance fair pregnant then nine months later she gives birth to a tickle-me-elmo. Sure it’s nice but not what you expected.

So in conclusion, when life gives you lemons make lemonade, when life gives you lemonade invent a machine that converts lemonade into lemons.

Oct 11

Theodore’s Advice Column

Hello internet sheep. I haven’t been able to get fired from my job so maybe going back to writing these outrageous articles will do the trick, or maybe my bosses haven’t bothered to Google my name. Any way this weeks question isn’t so much of a question as it is a statement:

“I want to pound my girlfriends ass and she won’t let me.”

This statement comes from two separate people who typed that into Google and clicked on this site.

 

Boy oh boy where to start with this one. Have you ever thought you might me be gay? Or is it that you just have such a small dick her vagina isn’t tight enough? Either way you are clearly not manly enough to make your woman respect your wishes so you might as well switch teams. Unless you do have a super tiny dick, then if you go gay you will probably be the one getting pounded in the ass. I think that’s what you really want based on the language that you used. You don’t pound a woman’s ass until she asks you to. Until she asks you to do that you slowly work your way up to making love to her ass. Since you are consumed by the thought of ass pounding I take it the only way you can reach climax is by having a man much stronger than you pummel your prostate with his fuck stick.

Well that’s it for this weeks article. Hopefully Google will give me some more good fodder for this stupid series. Until then go out there and get your face fucked.

 

Love,
Ted

Oct 02

UnScene Comedy Podcast: Shawn Carter with guests Rick Canavan and Will Smalley

Shawn Carter talks with guests Will Smalley and Rick Canavan about comedy in Boston and other things.

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Sep 25

UnScene Comedy Podcast: Shawn Carter with guests Sean Wilkinson and Jacob Simon (Part II)

The fellas talk about old video games and old wrestlers and also Wilkinson’s experience on an audition show for Comedy Central.

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