My Intimate Interview With Monster Praveen

This afternoon, I was instant messaged by a man I do not know on facebook. His name was Monster Praveen. We have 0 mutual friends, but I accept anyone who requests me on the FB, so here we are... me and Monster Praveen. Normally, I wouldn't post messages like this publicly, but the conversation was so weird that I thought I'd share it with you.

Comedy Reflection: 3/10/12 Moose Lodge Batavia

My winter hibernation is over! I normally don't like doing too many shows during the winter because I never have it in me to write new material, a lot of comedy shows don't do shows during the winter, and frankly, it's harder to get people to come out during the cold months, even when said months aren't that cold. This past Saturday, March 10th, I was invited to do a show at the Moose Lodge in Batavia by my friend Matt Drufke. He asked me to host the show, and this was the perfect chance to work on my hosting and crowd work skills for the upcoming summer shows.

Comedian Lewis Rhine and I weren't sure if our new experiment "Barely Watchable" would work, but in under a week, we hit over 100 views. For a first episode, I call that a decent success.

The whole idea of the show is for two Chicagoland comedians to watch internet videos, using Google+ Hangouts, and comment on them. I really want to take this format, which has been done a million times, into a new direction by keeping it unscripted and focusing on videos that don't get a lot of hits.

It's a very new format and we have a lot of kinks, but I think we'll have them worked out by the second episode, which we're filming on Thursday or Wednesday. Hope you guys enjoy the new show. This is what Prattle Rattle has become since we shut down the site.

A Letter To Terrible Audience Members

Dear key annoying audience members this past Saturday at the Improv during Charlie Murphy and Freeze Love' set,

Hi. My name is Mat Elfring, and I hate you. Why do I hate you? Well, I spent a lot of money to take my girlfriend out to a comedy show, and you spent a lot of the night being fucking ridiculous. Listen, I understand we're all at a comedy show, and we're all having a great time, but I think you missed the point of the whole comedy show, which is to watch comedy. I will address the three of you individuals personally, so you feel as alienated as possible, even though you'll never read this.

I don't know if you guys saw it, but the very opening of the show was a video featuring the very funny Todd Glass where he explains the rules most rooms have. I'd like to re-establish two of these rules with you very quickly, again: Keep your talking to a minimum and turn off your cell phones. You all missed this video because you were talking.

1. Dude in the blue vest:

I'll never understand people like you. People who are so oblivious to the world around them. Sure, there's no law that says we should respect the people around us, but sometimes it feels nice to and when you respect people, they respect you back. You, however, are too busy not only talking on your phone, but talking louder than Charlie Murphy, who is on stage. Did you feel embarrassed when he made fun of you? Is that why you left so quickly and didn't return? It's pretty easy to go out into the hall and answer your phone, you know. Or, just don't answer it.

2. Fat Guy Who Reminds Me of Every Italian Restaurant Owner

You're loud, annoying, and you constantly tell everyone around you that your best friend is black and sitting next to you. Congrats. Three cheers for friendship diversity! Just because you're big, your voice doesn't has to be. I'm sure you and your pals love to chat, but I don't like your conversations, and you know what else? You're not funny, so please stop trying to tell jokes. Leave it to the professionals.

3. Fat Guy's Black Friend

Yeah, you sucked too, and you both deserve each other. Aside from being just as loud, you spent a good deal of time yelling out things like "Darkness" and "fuck yo couch!" We all saw Chappelle show, and it was/is brilliant, but don't you realize that Charlie Murphy hears this at every single show. The guy is a solid storyteller. Let him do his job, and enjoy it. Also, no one thinks you're funny. They think the lines you're repeating from television are funny. You're a plagiarist. 

Let me say this, being a comedian is not easy. It may be fun, but when people like you are around, it's a bitch. We shouldn't have to stop our sets in order to tell you to shut the fuck up or put down your phone. Aside from that, the room is packed with people that all payed roughly $35 a ticket, then a two drink minimum to go out for the night. That ain't cheap. We don't want to listen to you. We want to listen to Charlie Murphy and Freeze Love. I hope you all understand that you were insatiable twats that night, and while you may not have ruined my night, you sure did annoy the piss out of me and many other people in the audience. Remember, it's not a good thing when the audience focuses their attention towards you.

Sincerely,

Mat Elfring

A comedian and a lover of stand-up comedy

UPDATE: I forgot to mention one thing. I loved the Improv in Schaumburg. It was an amazing room, which made me a bit madder because these assholes will never understand how to appreciate a good comedy room. Comedians do a lot of shows in small venues, and sometimes even in the dreaded bars. Walking into a room like the Improv was very refreshing and incredibly impressive. It's something a comedian can inspire to work up to. Don't get me wrong, I'll tell jokes anywhere and do it with a sincere smile on my face. I'll play a bar during the 7th game of the World Series, with all the televisions turned on.

For those who want to know, I was apprehensive about seeing Charlie Murphy because he's famous for a non-stand-up role. Like when Steve-O did Zanies in St Charles last year and bombed horribly according to a couple of my comedy loving friends that saw him. Luckily, Charlie was pretty funny, and more importantly, he brought the storytelling role from television onto the stage. It was worth every penny.

The host/opener was a poet from Chicago. He was very talented, but he wasn't a comedian. It didn't fit well, and his material seemed to be just for the black audience members.

The guy in between was named Freeze Love. I hated this guy's stage name but loved everything else about him. He engaged the crowd incredibly well, and his comedy was a hit with everyone regardless of race, religion, or sex. I would love to see him and Murphy again.

My Favorite Things People Said About My Most Disappointing Editorials

Last week, I wrote an article on ComicVine about the most disappointing Marvel storylines. The week prior, I wrote the same article about DC. The Marvel article has quickly become the most popular editorial I've ever written for the vine, and with that comes a lot of love as well as a lot of hate.

Comic book fans are passionate. They love what they love, and they hate what they hate, and they have no trouble expressing what they feel. I love that about the community. That being said, I took a lot of guff for my choices. I "googled" myself this week because I am a bit of a whore for wanting to know what people say about me, and I found this quote on this tumblr page:

I had a bit of a giggle. I understand why he or she is mad. This person loves One More Day and by me saying it's an article that was disappointing to me... well, that's a direct attack on something they enjoy. It becomes personal, even though it's really not.

This next one is my personal favorite. It comes from the comment section of CV:

The very first sentence of this editorial is this:

It's a simple case of not reading the article. This happens a lot in my line of work. People read the title of an article and just get angry.

This next one is in reference to One More Day, Peter Parker, and Mary Jane:

I truly believe that. You should too. There's a lot of anger in his whole comment. I'm not sorry for having a different opinion than anyone else, but I feel like most of the time, I do a good job of backing up my opinion.

Here's one of my favorites:

The reason why I love this one is because when I do these lists, sometimes people get mad I only list 3-5 items. Why not more? Well because writing these, while enjoyable, takes a lot of time. I'm not just throwing things into an article all willy-nilly. I usually go into my old comic collection, catch up on the story, do more research on the characters, and I spend a ton of time putting them together. I'd love to do a list of the 100 most disappointing story lines, but I simply don't have the time between the 4 or 5 jobs I currently have. I want these articles to be enjoyable and accurate, so I put time into them. Quality over quantity.

When will people learn to separate Disney the kiddie shit and Disney the company? There is no solid (or any) evidence that the Disney buyout had any affect on Marvel comics. It seems when Marvel does something they don't like, they blame the mouse. That's illogical thinking.

It wasn't all hate. There was tons of love too. Like I said, I understand why people get so angry, but I think that they don't understand is that you can't write an article like this without loving Marvel or DC in the first place. I love comics. I may lean towards DC as the company I enjoy more, but that doesn't mean I hate Marvel. I do, however, on occasion get tired of talking about how much I love the industry, which I do. They're not bulletproof. They have flaws. We should all be able to call them out on it. Just because you love something that doesn't make it infallible.

Bye bye!

It's been a weird year...

It's been a weird year (not 2012, but moreso Feb 2011-Jan 2012). I originally started this blog as an outlet for writing that doesn't have to deal with comic books, since I write for the glorious website ComicVine. Quickly after I started writing on this tumblr page, I was offered a writing position for the comedian run website, PrattleRattle. I tried my best to keep writing on the tumblr page, but between this, ComicVine, PrattleRattle, HopeYouDieBro (which will die next I'm sure), and every social media outlet I'm plugged into, this fell by the wayside.

However, as of this week, PrattleRattle is no more after loss of interest by pretty much every writer on the site, including myself. So, it's a new year, and a new year to refocus on what the hell this tumblr is supposed to be. This is what the hipster kids use, right? Maybe I'll put a picture of a phonograph to catch their attention.

If you haven't noticed by now, there is no focus whatsoever to this post. I'm really just trying to get back into the routine of writing on this page. Sorry for disappointing you, but I have no real focus today.

What the crap did I write this week? 9/9/11

So, I'm going to try and remember to round up everything I did this week, every week... This will be the only time this happens probably.

COMIC VINE

Review: Justice League International #1

Interview: Alex Segura & Dan Parent for Archie Meets Kiss

Editorial: Why it sucks to be an aspiring writer

PrattleRattle

Cheerleaders Are Worthless

I Kinda Take It Back: Male Cheerleaders are Awesome

Even though it went up a few weeks ago, make sure to check out Lewis and my interviews with people at Wizard World Chicago..... Please?

Trying more artsy crap. These guys are members of PrattleRattle, a site I write for.

InferiorEgo on ComicVine: May 2011

Just got back from a two week vacation from my job, and I was kinda on ComicVine the past week but not too much. So, every month, I'll give you a brief description of some of the things I did on the site, and a few of the reviews that are note-worthy.

Click the title of the article to read it all. Because it came out today, I have one item from June.... Sorry.

X-Men First Class Character Profile: Angel Salvadore: What role will Angel Salvadore play in the upcoming X-Men film? Is she like her comic book counter-part?

X-Men First Class Character Profile: Emma Frost: Of course I get to do character profiles on the most attractive women in the film. Same thing as the Angel bit, but I spend less time on the original character's history, and more about continuity with X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Noteworthy Review: Flashpoint. Batman: Knight of Vengeance: My only 5 out of 5 stars review for the month. Really solid issue about Batman, if Batman was actually Thomas Wayne and not Bruce.

NOTworthy Review: Flashpoint. Secret Seven: One of the worst tie-ins I ever read. 1.5 out of 5 starts. I thought you should know that I don't like everything I have to review.

Noteworthy Review: Justice Society of America #51: My favorite super-hero team's book feels like it's back on its feet.

Worst 5 Action Figure Accessories: Worst 5 is back! It's on hiatus now (I'll explain later), but this series seems to be popular with fans. I will bring it back.

ComicVine Community Star jloneblackheart: My last week of running the Community Star. ::sad face emoticon:: I give it to a hard working mod.

Early Review: The Pound #2: The creative team of the Pound sneaks me another copy of the book early, and I end up loving it. It got 4 out of 5 stars.

Is Superman Un-American?: I never thought this little rant about Superman being the world's protector and not just America would blow up this big. People are pretty passionate I guess.

All right, so I mentioned above that "Worst 5" is taking a break for a little and that's because of the summer blockbuster films coming into theaters. I'm very excited with all the First Class profile articles, and Gman, Tom Pinchuk, and I will be doing something like that for the upcoming Green Lantern film. After all these comic book movies are out, I will be back to writing goofiness stuff that you love, but how could I pass up writing about Green Lantern characters? See you guys on the vine!

You Know Nothing About: Editing

Look at that! I'm going to try and do a reoccurring post about things people know jack shit about. Hooray for me!

I went to film school. You can stop laughing. I have a wonderous BA in Film concentrating in critical analysis and screenwriting. I paid a lot of money for that degree, so I'm allowed to type it all out. I spent most of my time in college doing what many people have done: editing and filming weddings. Most of my film buddies and I jokingly called it the "7th circle of hell" because, well, it's the worst job in the world. Nowadays, I won't touch weddings. I did go on to do a freelance piece for Colbert Report called "Rocktober," edit music videos for a Chicago band for 4 years, work on some short films and documentaries, and um... Colbert Report. However, I still do some filming and editing for a local high school, and if need be, I'll do some freelance work here and there. If there's one thing I've learned about this job, it's that the clients never know anything about editing.

More recently, clients want me to take their videos on DV tapes, Hi-8 (gross), or VHS and put them onto DVD with chapters and a nice looking DVD menu. Most of the time, it's about 2 hours of footage in total. All of said clients are completely clueless to the process and most of them offer me $20-$40 for my time. This is highly insulting, and the reason is it takes a buttload of time to do this "easy" task. Please, come with me on a magical journey through my process of editing together your crappy family footage.

Click here to read more.

Sorry bout the watermark. Anyway, this is more stencil art shit I'm working on. Trying out new things. It's a picture of my wonderful girlfriend. I took the original photo.

Old School Gaming vs New School Gamers

Please watch the video above before reading on.

I won't make you click a link this time to view the rest. This is from my blog I had, back in February, on blogspot, called Count Judas' Pajama Jam. I don't write for it anymore since I use this writing style on PrattleRattle, so if you do like my ranting here, be sure to check out the stuff I have, and the other writers, on that site.

Watch the video above or else this won't make any sense. Here we go. I know that no matter what, you're going to hate the generation that comes after you. I am in that weird position where technically, I'm the start of Generation Y aka the computer generation, but I identify so much more with Generation X simply because I liked the music, the movies, and most importantly, I didn't grow up with a computer. I have full understanding of what the world is like without Internet, personal computers, or cable television. Growing up, we played outside and used our imaginations. Ideas just didn't come out of nowhere, they were conceptualized, molded, and perfected. Today, ideas are googled, downloaded, and plagiarized. The two problems with this video was that this kid was born in the wrong generation and he's trying to be someone else while holding on to his own identity. It's very obvious that he's trying to be the "Angry Video Game Nerd" from YouTube. He's had much success with his video reviews and with success comes emulators from across the land. I mean he even calls himself "The Angry Video Game Nerd XD." Maybe it's because I'm an old fart, but I don't know what the fuck "XD" means. "X" used to mean "X-treme." So what's the "D" for? Anyway, he's not really angry. Maybe frustrated, but more than anything, he's feigning anger. He wants to be the Angry Video Game Nerd. That's only the minor part of the problem. Old School Gaming tested more than hand-eye coordination. It tested patience. Any person who grew up with Atari, NES, or even SNES will tell you. Sometimes you have to sit back and let the fireball pass you before you can move on. I love video games, including more recent games, but they're incredibly easy. All you have to do is run through a level, head-first, and there you have it. With older systems, especially NES, you have to be patient. If you run head first towards the end, you will die and have to start from the beginning. And the reward wasn't an achievement or unlocking a new way to play the game. The reward for beating the game was a picture saying "congratulations" and the feeling of accomplishment. My favorite part of this video, which really proves my patience point, is take a minute or two to watch him play the game. He dashes through this game... and dies... and dies... and dies again. The game isn't hard. Just shoot the guys shooting you and jump over obstacles. And the reason there isn't a health bar is because a health bar makes the game easier. Games are supposed to be challenging. If games weren't challenging, it would be called "temp work." Sure, even though I feel the older generation deals with challenging situations a little more patiently, we still get frustrated. I was playing Ducktails the other night for NES, one of my favorite games. And while I could make it through a chunk of the game with no problem, I couldn't beat the final boss. I died and died and died and died. That's why NES and SNES  controllers can take a licking and keep on ticking. They were meant to be tossed in anger. I dare you to chuck a 360 controller across the room. You'll be out of a controller, a window, due to the fact wireless controllers go far, and by go far, I mean out/through your window, and $50. The problem isn't his opinion, which is pretty off, it's the fact the game wasn't meant for him. It was meant for people who want a challenge with a dash of fun. That's what gaming used to be about. Yeah, the graphics aren't revolutionary, the game play is strenuous, and the music (which I still think is awesome) isn't... no fuck that, the music is awesome. NES/Contra was simple with a lot of heart. It also made youo learn cheat codes... the Konami Code to be exact. But nowadays, if you can't take the heat, film a video review.... or write a blog.