Category: artsy fartsy

Tonight, Seattle! From the Stranger!

Chuckletown, USA

Shows That’ll Help You Laugh at the Traveling Freak Show Your Family Becomes at Christmas

by Cienna Madrid

Postscript: Another fun show by the amazing Rick Taylor! He made this lil button for me, which made me feel famous:

pin

THURSDAY 12/15

HOLIDAY HULLABALOO 2011
“As a gay man and a comedian, I’ve always found it funny that those worlds—comedy and being gay—[couldn’t] intersect more,” explains Hullabaloo producer Rick Taylor. “So [my partner] and I created this show to bring the comedy community over to the drag community and introduce them.” The Holiday Hullabaloo that results is charming: Local comics like Derek Sheen and Barbara Holm (and her ukulele) perform 10-minute sets, holly-decked drag queens strut their stuff, and Taylor recites his annual rendition of “‘Twas the Night Before Gay Christmas” (“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the gay bar/All the creatures were stirring because that’s how gays are/The condoms were hung by the vending machine with care/In hopes that leather Santa soon would be there/The twinks were dancing and wearing their Keds/While visions of sugar daddies danced in their heads…”). Best yet, the show benefits the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Abbey of St. Joan—those immensely compassionate, beautifully scary nuns who raise money to help homeless and queer youth, among other social service projects. (Another reason to love the Sisters—they draw the line at celibacy. We all have our limits.) Julia’s on Broadway, 8 pm, $20 adv/$25 DOS, 21+.

CHAD: It Tastes Like Brains!

11/10/2011 — 8:00pm

CHAD Chats — Ideas That Smell Funny!

@ The Saratoga
6910 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR

CHAD, the international foundation for the blowing of minds, is partnering with local author MYKLE HANSEN and comedy developer WHITNEY STREED to present a special evening of our popular CHAD Chats – satirical PowerPoint presentations by some of the finest minds in the fields of Humor, Science, Literature, Entertainment and Middle-Management.

  • Famous Author MYKLE HANSEN, author of The Cannibal’s Guide To Ethical Living, will share an exciting breakthrough in his ongoing efforts to eliminate world hunger through Facebook postings.
  • REUBEN NISENFELD, decorated Portland slam-poet and Field Researcher for the Dharma and Greg institute, will explain once and for all the difference between Nothing and Everything, with Q&A to follow.
  • Internationally recognized deceased astrophysicist CARL SAGAN will make a special announcement of an all-encompassing nature, accompanied by earthly spirit guide CHRISTIAN RICKETTS.
  • The elegant professional jokestress VIRGINIA JONES will speak on the subject of Abe Lincoln, pants, and why your cat is incapable of love.
  • And local humor wizard and spokesperson for the mute DAX JORDAN will discuss the finer nuances of Brain Chemistry.
  • Comedy developer WHITNEY STREED will felicitously facilitate and solicitously solicit the evening’s presentations.

At CHAD Chats enlightenment, endrinkenment and enlaughenment are scientifically assured! This special event is FREE to the drinking-age public, but space is limited. Presentations begin promptly at 8pm on Thursday November 10th at THE SARATOGA BAR, 6910 N. Interstate. Full bar and menu. Tables and chairs upon request. X-rated open-mic comedy to follow.

John Hodgman on Portland- from the Portland Monthly Blog, by me!

pdx-pocalypse

John Hodgman on Portland

The Daily Show’s “resident expert” shared his unique perspective on Portland at a Bagdad Theatre book signing.

by Virginia Jones

“The increasingly deranged…John Hodgman!” crowed musician John Roderick, making way for the author and humorist to take the stage carrying a ukulele in a case, and a tote bag of what turned out to be single-serving mayonnaise packets and 5 Hour Energy bottles.

He then sat down to remove his shoes and socks, remarking, “I am John Hodgman, and I am a deranged millionaire. I took my shoes off. That is all I am taking off. This is the one show in Portland that is not a burlesque show. I’m sorry for that.”

The nerdy sausage party that had amassed to see him read his new book That Is All nodded knowingly as he ran through his bio. “You may know me from the Daily Show, where I appear as the Resident Expert, or more likely you know me as the personal computer in a series of commercials for a computer company.” (The crowd cheered.)

“You’re the two people in Portland who own a television and are willing to admit it.” He went on to recount being picked up at the airport in a familiar-looking Subaru, and asking the driver if it was the “communal Subaru of Portland, like the communal white bicycles of Amsterdam, or the communal white tigers of Amsterdam. Feed them raw meat and leave them at any hashish house or murder hostel.”

When Hodgman got around to the book, an audience member claimed to have purchased it on Kindle. “You didn’t buy it on Kindle, sir,” he was quick to contradict, “and if you did, I’ll need to have a talk with you later…it is only available on paper, for two reasons: I wanted to make Portlanders clap—(applause) I want to please sanctimonious Luddites…and it is the only format that will survive Ragnarok.”
He explained how his last book of “all world knowledge” was in fact inspired by Portland, as his last tour guide had told him that one of the great things about Portland was its “extremely pure and secure source of Glacier water. She said, when the excrement comes down, this will be a very good place to live. And then we went downtown to Pioneer Square, and then I saw something I guess you see in Portland all the time: I saw a member of the Church of Satan buying flowers. It was Valentine’s day.” He name-checked Portland’s Rex Church.

“ I realized Portland was a special place: The end of the world and the Church of Satan, which is what makes the book such a great Christmas gift for children.” He asked us, “Please don’t applaud yourselves….I expect that in San Francisco.”

Hodgman continued his Portland-centric rant by reading a passage from his book, the Ragnarok calendar entry for October 18, 2012: “The well-built old buildings of a carefully preserved historic downtown withstand the MEGA-QUAKES, a public commitment to alternative energy (biofuel, solar, geothermal, cold fusion, powered by hemp, and humans pushing a giant wheel around) saves the city from the devastation of the OMEGA PULSE. The city’s spirit of cooperation, forged from a long history of mutual poverty and deadbeatism, inoculates the populace from panic and food riots. The Great Dike, built sustainably from recovered lumber in a modern updating of the Arts and Crafts style, keeps the city free from blood, and the well-made artisanal cocktails at the Heathman hotel dull the psychic trauma of a world gone mad, leaving PORTLAND, OREGON as the only functioning city in the United States after the BLOOD WAVE. Naturally, the Portlanders are extremely smug about it. Their paradise lasts seven weeks before they are all murdered by refugees from Seattle.”
And then he left, promising us all Segways that Dean Kamen had given him at the most recent TED conference. “And you’ve got a Segway, and you’ve got a Segway, and you’ve got a Segway!…” Like most of Hodgman’s declarations, the promise proved to be good-natured hogwash.

Postscript: And also, here is a picture of John Hodgman making good on his promise to give two gold coins to any fan of The Best Show on WFMU who provided the appropriate documentation and recited the secret message, “I’d like a discount.”

Shine A Light! Friday, Oct 14th at Portland Art Museum!

Once a year, the Portland Art Museum hosts Shine A Light, where peformance artists offer new ways of interacting with art.   This year, they are adding comedians, including Danny Felts, Whitney Streed, Jen Allen, Jimmy Newstetter, and myself, Virginia Jones.  It costs the regular $15 admission, or it’s free for members (only fifty bucks a year to join!).

There will be haircuts offered, dances performed, and beers brewed inspired by works from the collection.

  I will be leading a fictional art tour on the third floor of the Jubitz center. Focus will be on the post-1960 modern art collection.

Postscript: I had a really wonderful time telling art jokes.  I am considering recording my jokes for a podcast that can be downloaded and used in a walk-through tour. 

My friend CJ fell in love there, and got married and then divorced. I talked with a reporter who told me she would have loved to have quoted me more, but most of my jokes had the f-bomb in them.  They totally do!

Shine A Light 2011- At the Portland Art Museum, Friday, Oct 14

Untitled #417, 2004- from welovecindysherman.com

The Portland Art Museum does Shine A Light once a year, where performance artists offer new ways of interacting with art.  

This year, they are adding comedians, including Danny Felts, Whitney Streed, Jimmy Newstetter, and myself.  It costs the regular $15 admission, or it’s free for members (only fifty bucks a year to join!).

There will be haircuts, dances, and beers brewed inspired by works from the collection.  I will be leading a fictional art tour on the third floor of the Jubitz center, focusing on the post-1960 modern art collection.

Grandpa Won’t Wake Up!

Grandpa Won’t Wake Up

My friends Simon Max Hill and Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man, the comic and Too Much Coffee Man, the opera, have come together to create a book about the delight, whimsy, and the deep, deep cruelty and sadism of childhood, entitled Grandpa Won’t Wake Up.  It is available on Amazon and in any fine bookstores where books which will f*ck up your children are sold.

  I was privy to a live reading of the book, fresh off the presses, by the author in the company of the illustrator, because I am a special person, and because the three of us happened to be standing around in front of La Merde in the daytime, like hoboes.  You will probably just have to order a copy on Amazon.  It is very funny, and will be a good way to explain death, transvestism, Nazis, and devil worship to the little ones in your life.