Last night Dave Savage was back in town, which meant another evening immersed in the smell of salted meats at Katz?s Delicatessen. After a previously wretched sandwich, I had sworn off the highly overpriced and extremely overrated New York City landmark, but it is the designated spot for Savage and numerous other (now former) members of the Funny Garbage crew (which I know through Jason) to gather, so I had an excuse to go. And I have to admit, their hot dogs were not that bad. Not $2.60 good, but not bad either.
Got to catch up with quite a few folks as usual; most are former (Flash) animators who are all dealing with varying degrees of freelance hell. One guy had a short stint at MTV Animation, which lead me to ask what the fuck happened to them. I used to be a hardcore fan of their output, such as Liquid Television, Beavis & Butthead (at least the very low-fi first season), and the Maxx. Hell, I eve liked the Aeon Flux television series despite it being not as incredible as the original shorts. But near the end, the shit they were producing really was that: shit. One that comes to mind a lot, which I even brought up, was Clone High. I have to admit, I never even watched a single episode, but the premise alone (a high school full of kids that are clones of famous folks) was enough to ensure that I would never give it the time of day.
This of course led into a discussion regarding the overuse of pop culture references and how it?s ruining comedy today. Back to Clone High, the premise is actually pretty strong, but I can no longer stand people simply using other people?s over developed sense of pop culture knowledge as cheap means for a laugh. Though the thing is, it still works; I love that dumb reaction that some people get when they hear some random 80?s quote. Yes, I remember the Goonies and Ghostbusters. We all do.
Another guy currently works as a toy designer, and he told me how shitty that was. Basically, you can?t do anything anymore due to parents being such pussies and the fear of lawsuits. This of course lead to me recalling the anger I felt when I discovered that the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime that I spend a good deal of money on had shortened exhaust pipes just to avoid some dumb kid from poking his eye out. Plus there was talk about some person everyone knew, who?s actually well known (credits include work on the old Nickelodeon show Kablam!), getting arrest by the FBI for soliciting a minor. And that in turn lead to me mentioning this.
But the highlight was watching some guy eat like 8 sandwiches all by himself. I saw him sit down with one on a plate and the rest in a take out bag, didn?t pay attention to him eating the first one, but later noticed him digging through the bag for the rest. As he went on, he became more aggressive, and would tear through each sandwich, slamming the bread onto the plate and just ate the meat. In the end, there was a huge pile of rye bread with mustard and chucks of salami strewn about the table. And the guy wasn?t huge or anything, but he was wearing a pager. Seriously, who the fuck in this day and age still uses a beeper?
Afterwards I met up with Joe to catch a video shoot in Times Square for GWAR (word of this came from the drummer, who happens to know Joe, since he did artwork for a recent show). June joined us and we arrived at the spot around 11, and I was immediately hungry; I was exhausted and since the shoot was going till 9 in the morning, I would need some protein to help stay awake. Since the Yoshinoya near my work closed down, I figured it would be a prime excuse to grab a beef bowl, so I did. I have to admit, it was a real New York moment: standing in the middle of Time Square, rubbing shoulders on a street corner with tourists and crack-heads, eating Japanese fast food, while waiting for a heavy metal band who?s main shtick is that they?re from outer space, fought the devil, had sex with monkeys, and gave birth to all mankind.
I was surprised to discover that one of the PA?s was a recent graduate of SVA. Super nice guy. He was also super tired. When he asked who the hell the band was, I don?t think he expected me to know. And if not for the fact that I was a fan, I think we would have gone off on how stupid it all was. Though you can?t blame the guy for thinking that way when his crew trying to get the intestines on the stage ?just right.?
But other than dealing with an aggressive hand handler (which I always seem to get; I guess I look like some push over who has money coming out of his ass? I sorta wanted to take Morgan’s advice, but I really didn?t want a punch in the face or a rusty fork in my kidney), it was pretty much a dead scene the whole night. I thought I could hang in there till at least 3, but by 1:30 I was beat, so June and I headed out. And naturally, Joe tells me that GWAR came out about thirty seconds after we left, but his description of the video crew dealing with annoying metal heads and drunk yuppies who were described as ?fair-weather GWAR fans? was perhaps more amusing than actually being there.
