Sam Jack sighting!

Day 43: The search for the Variety Society continues.

Word has it that a Millbrae man has sworn not to shave his beard until the Variety Society returns.

Further word has it that that man was actually a sheep, and that his beard was actually his coat, and that he has subsequently been sheared.

We may never know what was learned from this anecdote.

But finally, a breakthrough. Sam Jack, executive producer of the Variety Society, has apparently surfaced again, this time being spotted by a local wildlife photographer who originally set out to discover whether bears do, in fact, shit in the woods.

The following image, purported to be the elusive Jack, has not been altered in any way:




In a related story, a man claiming to be a local blogger claims to have interviewed a person claiming to be Sam Jack claiming to be Napoleon III claiming to be Sam Jack again about the future of the Variety Society. A crazy story? Sure, but coupled with the amazing photographic evidence above, how can we doubt him?

The claimed interview from the claimed man with the claimed Jack is claimed to be found here.

And now, I'm off to the Great Barrier Reef to investigate a reported sighting of Alexia Staniotas. Or was it Hoboken instead of the Great Barrier Reef? I get those things confused sometimes.

But there's one thing I'm never confused about: I will not rest until the Variety Society is back on the air!

I wonder if I have time to squeeze in a nap?

The Search (continues -->) Continues!

Day 36: The Variety Society is still missing in action. For over a month there has been no sighting of the wayward late night show.

Without them, there is a hole in this community. Local musical acts and sketch comedy groups, bereft of a late night program to perform on, have resorted to selling their bodies on stree tcorners (do we have a source on that?). It is a sad state of affairs.

But now several VarSoc members have confirmed they will be attending a screening of "Roomies", a short film submitted to this year's 48 Hour Film Project.

The time: Wednesday, June 22nd, 7:00 PM.

The place: Lumiere theater, 1572 California Street, San Francisco.

The cheese: Roquefort.

The Baldwin: Billy (disclaimer: Billy Baldwin may not be in attendance. Substitute Baldwins are on-call.)

"Roomies" stars Variety Society announcer and official sidekick Erik Braa and Variety Society executive producer Sam Jack, was directed by Variety Society director Colin Murray, and was written by Variety Society head writer Justin LaneLutter, and also by that other guy who writes some stuff sometimes.

Who is that guy anyway? You know, long hair, inappropriate sense of humor, kinda creepy, who am I thinking of?

Oh yeah, Russell Brand.

Will the Variety Society really be in attendance? Will the film provide any insight as to the whereabouts of our missing late night show? Will the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by?

One more: By and by.

Okay, we made quota. Good, good.

Lost and found. And now possibly lost again.

On May 14th 2011, the cast of "The Variety Society" recorded their sixth live show. On May 15th, the cast of "The Variety Society" sold most of their possessions, bought some Harleys, and drove off into the wilds of the Mojave desert to "find themselves." They have not been heard from since.

After an extensive investigation on behalf of their creditors, we have concluded that the missing comedians are presently missing. No further information is available at this time. It took us long enough just to fact-check that much.

The following is a list of the items left in Dan Sullivan's apartment when the lock on his door "broke off" and then the wind blew it open and then the wind blew us inside and then the wind ransacked the place:

• Three black suit coats with identical mustard stains in the shape of Idaho on the collar.
• Four 8x10 glossy photos, autographed by Dan Sullivan to Dan Sullivan.
• One VHS copy of Elaine May's "Ishtar", still in the original shrink-wrap.
• One novelty double-sided business card with "See other side for details," on both sides. Showed signs of extreme wear.
• One external hard drive containing the last recorded "Variety Society" broadcast, dated May 14th.

We are releasing these recordings as part of our ongoing effort to locate the errant late night show. Also, for the benefit of the public, we burned "Ishtar", and we are thoroughly checking both sides of this card.

If you any information about the whereabouts of our late night show, contact our offices. Variety Society, if you're out there, please come home by September. Your fish miss you.

We just launched a Kickstarter Project: Get great incentives for pledging

Have you ever heard that producing a TV show is expensive?

Well, it does cost a good amount of money, but we've been able to get a great broadcasting deal with KOFY TV20 to air new episodes of The Variety Society!
Companies interested in advertising with us will get affordable prices on a variety(no pun intended) of promotional material.

If you just want to donate a little as a fan, pledges start at $1!! Incentives include downloads of episodes, free tickets, VarSoc T-shirts and much more!

The biggest announcement since our last announcement!

Well folks, last Saturday's show wraps up our pilot season. And to think, just six months ago it was six months ago, and none of this had even happened.

Normally when I say that I'm in a doctor's office or some kind of holding cell, so this is really neat for me.

Clips from episode six will be appearing shortly, and then we're gonna take a little summer break, you know, play coy and hard to get so you don't start taking us for granted and then go behind our backs with other late night shows.

Don't worry though, because we'll still be producing original content with all of our cast members, or at least, all of our cast members who can avoid getting pinched for taping without the proper permits.

That reminds me, we haven't checked in with our favorite announcer, sidekick, and voice actor Erik Braa in a while. Erik, why don't you tell us what the Variety Society means to you?

Yikes! Um, Erik is working through a few things folks, why don't we leave him to sort all of that out. Instead, a word from our resident investigative reporter, Alexia Staniotos. Take it away, Alexia:

Damn! I mean...damn. That's a side of Alexia we don't usually see. But now we'll see it every night in our nightmares, and possibly even just when we close our eyes, from now until doomsday. Brrrr.

Well, creeping alcoholism and unexpected psychotic episodes aside, we'll still be working to bring the Bay Area our special blend of irreverent comedy and local talent, rain or shine.

But not if it's hailing. Hail is where we draw the line. Or that thing where it's not really raining but not quite snowing yet? Yeah, we hate that, we're not going anywhere near that.

I've run the numbers a hundred times!

In case you hadn't heard, we're doing a show this Saturday.

But wait, you say (did you actually just say that? Because that would be so weird...), didn't you guys just do a show less than two weeks ago? Why yes, yes we did, and the fact that you keep such strict track makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like an inverted bunny rabbit.

But this upcoming episode is something of an emergency measure. You see, we have too much Stuff. "Stuff" is a technical term, so let me explain: "Stuff" means content, like the content that we put into each episode of "The Variety Society" (let me know if I've lost you). Usually we get about a two liter bottle each month, looks something like this:

Yeah, don't even ask where it all comes from, there are certain things you just plain don't want to know about TV. Anyway, once we have Stuff, we need somewhere to put it all, and that's where Show comes in:

And now for the number crunching:

Stuff/Show=1

Hot damn, that semester at MIT is finally paying off!

And that, my friends, is how we do business. But this month? Well, this month, we ran into a little problem:

Oh my God! That's almost twice as much Stuff as usual! In fact, let me do some more calculations...it's exactly twice as much! Quick, someone get me a calculator.

Stuff x 2/Show=2

Two?! It came out to two! That's never happened before! It always comes out to one! What does this mean? What dark sorcery has brought this to pass?

With more Stuff than we can fit into the single Show that we've completed, we have no choice but to do another Show in hopes that that will be sufficient to contain it all. And we'll be doing that show LIVE, SATURDAY, MAY 14th, at the BOXCAR THEATER STUDIOS, 125A HYDE STREET!

Let me just twist the cap off of this bottle of Stuff and see what we've got here...ah, it appears to be performance artist and musician Scott Alexander along with director David Moutray, who is just about to hit the festival circuit with his new film "Nobody's Laughing" (which, despite what certain smartasses will tell you, was not originally called "The Variety Society Story").

Now we just have to sit back and pray that the dreaded Stuffx3 bottle is only a myth, because our staff can only take so much. If we keep up this grueling pace, this job might start to feel like some kind of work.

Finding your loser.

Our originally scheduled guest, local dentist Orin Scrivello, bailed at the last minute, but lucky for us "Little Shop of Horrors" star John Lewis was around to fill in. Sometimes these things just seem meant to be.

Really strange the way Orin disappeared like that though. And strange how John was hanging around after he did. And strange how I always thought that plant in the green room was fake, but somehow its gotten bigger since last week.

Ah well, probably a series of unrelated and completely ordinary coincidences. And now, on with the show, without a thought in the world about these suspicious, unexplained events, which I'm sure will have no tragically ironic effect on our lives in the immediate future.

Boy, I sure hope our show is successful, because I really need a way to improve my quality of life and achieve my modest working-class dreams. If only there were a quick and easy way to get ahead that only required some morally ambiguous decisions and a complete lack of foresight or self-awareness.

Well, anyway, enough about my comically downtrodden circumstances and doomed but sympathetic nice-guy persona, instead let's hear about "Little Shop of Horrors":

The Variety Society, Episode 5-Monologue

Segment 1 of Episode 5, Cold Open, Intro & Monologue now online!!

Enjoy!

But really, can't we get beyond Thunderdome?

There's something of a natural process of escalation that's built into this job.

Before every show I talk up the guests, and then after every show I talk up the guests. Occasionally I do callbacks to previous guests. I spend some time on the guests, is what I'm saying here.

I do this for two reasons: one, it's just part of my job to say that the people we book bestride the narrow world like a colossus while we petty men peep out to find ourselves dishonorable graves, and two, they do, in fact, bestride the narrow world like a colossus while we petty men peep out to find ourselves dishonorable graves (kind of a handy coincidence, that).

Still, at some point, I'm going to begin finding it hard to top myself. Sure, I could tell you that the gals from Monday Night Foreplays were so funny at our Saturday taping that they might have shifted the earth's crust a couple of inches, like a sort of comedic Tohuku earthquake. But come to think of it, don't I say that about the PianoFight regulars too?

The way I see it, there's only one way to resolves this:

Gladiatorial combat!

Yes, I propose that this show's guests square off against previous shows' guests to determine, once and for all, just whose ass I ought to be kissing around here!

That's right, I want Blake Schaefer and Todd Shipley to square off mano y mano, guitarra y guitarra in a magical musical duel (guitarists do that sort of thing, right?) for the privilege of being called the Variety Society's greatest guitar-toting folk hero!

I want "Little Shop of Horrors" star John Lewis to pit his killer alien plants against Windy Borman's army of cybernetically enhanced robo-elephants (legal disclaimer: Ms. Borman does not necessarily endorse cybernetic experimentation on elephants)!

Can the existential beer pong players of PianoFight still crack wise while under the influence of Monday Night Foreplays' specially formulated 72 Hour Energy drink? THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!

Is it crass? Sure. Gratuitous? Certainly. A senseless sideshow of carnage for the sake of an imagined prize of little or no value? Naturally! But at least...um...kind of forgot where I was going with this, actually.

Awkward...

Late Night. 2.0.

One day I woke up and said: "I'm going to re-imagine late night TV."

And then I said: "Where am I, what's that smell, and where are my pants?" Because it had been one of those nights.

Once I had those matters squared away, I was pretty committed to the whole re-imagining thing, and lucky for me there were some others guys who had already laid the groundwork and I was able to piggyback off of them pretty much without trying.

But the problem with re-imagining is, how do you know when you're done? It's not like there's a gauge you can check (believe me, I looked). You need some sort of independent verification, possibly from a local publication with an eye for pop culture trends, before you can be completely certain.

Enter Cory Hill, of the East Bay Express! That's it folks, the fourth estate has called it in our favor: re-imagination, complete. This calls for a celebration! You know how we celebrate around here? Well, that thing about my missing pants ought to give you some idea, but barring that, we usually do it by taping a show.

Which is why it's so lucky that we already have one scheduled! I know, you'd almost think we planned it this way. So please, join us LIVE, SATURDAY, APRIL 3Oth, 3:30 pm, at the BOXCAR THEATER STUDIOS, 125A HYDE STREET!

This time we're featuring the very funny, very talented ladies of Monday Night ForePlays. That's right, we're having a Monday night on a Saturday afternoon. How do we do it? Re-imagination!

And don't think we're stopping there. Step two: re-re-imagination! The key is to remember that late night is actually very early morning, and if you wait long enough, late night TV becomes morning-after TV, in all of its awkward, shameful, hungover glory. Oh yes, I can smell it now...

Splitting Hares.

No one panic! You over there panicking, stop that right this instant!

It's true that we are now just a little over a week away from the fifth episode of The Variety Society, but PLEASE, try to contain yourselves! The last thing we need is for your frenzied enthusiasm to boil over into a blood-red tide of civil violence that will sweep through the entire city.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT incite any riots on our behalf, no matter how much the publicity would ultimately benefit us. It's just not worth it for you or those around you. It would be totally worth it for us, but we wouldn't put our success above the public's safety. Although, if you were to put our success above the public's safety, we couldn't stop you. Just saying.

Instead, let us speak of Blake Schaefer, to calm your nerves and help suppress the urge to raise our show's profile via fire-lit reveling in the streets. Who is Blake Schaefer? At first you might think that he was an ill-conceived, barber-themed supervillain from John Byrne's Superman run, but you're thinking of Black Shaver. No, Blake Schaefer is our scheduled musical guest for next week.

Why did we go with Schaefer? To answer that question, you need only look at the cover art from his latest album:

Folks, your eyes are not playing tricks on you: That is a rabbit, jumping into the air, amidst a shower of gold-plated (solid gold?) guns. It's the cover of Blake Schaefer's "Between Two Worlds". Those two worlds being, apparently, the world of jumping rabbits and the world of golden guns.

I ask you, what does this mean? I ask you and you don't know. Because you're not responsible for it. As we all know, Christopher Lee was the Man With the Golden Gun, the Solex Agitator, which would have brought the world to its knees if not for the intervention of 007. But Roger Moore is not here to save us now.

How did this rabbit (or hare? I can't really tell) come into possession of the device? What did Christopher Lee have to do with it? Why did the studio stick with Roger Moore for so long? I want answers, damn it! And Blake Schaefer is the only man who can give them.

We will fully debrief Mr. Schaefer LIVE, SATURDAY, APRIL 30th, 3:30 PM, at the BOXCAR THEATRE STUDIOS, 125A HYDE STREET! In the meantime, please continue not rioting. But if you MUST riot, try to do it in one of our t-shirts. Because as George HW Bush said after he threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Out of Context Theatre rides again.

Sometimes people ask me about the context. These people are obviously not staying true to the spirit of the concept.

Also, to be honest, sometimes even I don't know the context. I'm just immersed in a sea of sensory input around here, I couldn't parse most of it if lives hung in the balance.

Frankly, I'm hoping someone out there can make sense of it all. Looking to me for guidance is like the blind leading the blind. Or possibly the deaf. Or maybe just a guy with bad gout:

"No, a mirror isn't good enough, I need to see me at 240p."
"God I look good pixelated. It makes me look so much younger."

"She is hot in a terrifying way, like Ilsa from 'Last Crusade.'"

"You can't make me look bad, I've got a Pixar face."
"It's true, he's like the black Nemo."

"Somehow we squeezed two hours of Charlie Sheen jokes into one hour of programming, how does that work?"

"Of all the jobs, that's the most thankless."
"I'll thank him. Hell, he does a good enough job I'll %$*@ the guy."
"We may need to see your form first."

"We really need to take advantage of this Apocalypse thing."

Who the hell are you people?

I'm here to do three things: make a statement, ask a question, and eat jujubes. And I'm all out of jujubes.

I'm pretty sure I screwed up that one-liner...although upon closer inspection, it was actually a two-liner anyway. Someone get John Carpenter on the phone, he has some explaining to do.

In any case, the first order of business is to make sure everyone knows that our next show will be taping April 30th, and I'm so excited about it that I'm going to medicate myself into a four week-long coma just so I can sleep through the wait time. Updates may be sporadic.

But enough about us, let's talk about you. Yes, you. I have a question for our readers, viewers, and ostensible supporters:

Just who in the hell are you people anyway?

No, really, WHO are you? Here you are, reading my words, watching our show, from which you can extrapolate all sorts of things about us. But we don't know a thing about you. You're anonymous, like the voice on the other end of the line in a horror movie. Except when that voice is Matthew Lillard, then it's really, really obvious.

But wait, on second thought, I actually have reams of information about all of you! That's right, welcome to the internet, please allow me to direct your attention to this graphic:

So, according to this, 89% of you are Americans. Whoo, go USA! But we have friends abroad too (and I'm not just talking about you, Moammar; you hang in there buddy); we have hits recorded from Russia, Canada, the UK, Ireland (hi Stephen!), and...Malaysia? The hell?

Who do we know in Malaysia? Seriously, there's a lot of Malaysian traffic here. More than the UK, Germany, China, and India combined. If this were the Olympics, Malaysia would be our Bronze Medalist (well, Russia is actually in third, but I assume they paid off the judges). Not that we're complaining mind you. We salute our anomalously large Malaysian following, howsoever one appropriately salutes in that part of the world.

I also see that half of you are Firefox users, but six percent of you are reading this via Chrome. You poor, brave, crazy sons of bitches. Four percent of you are using Linux, but from what I've seen of hardcore Linux users, it wouldn't surprise me if this was just one guy with 77 simultaneously running systems.

The biggest attraction here on the blog concerned our team-up with Berkeley Raw, but the second most viewed update is STILL me calling David Blatter a witch. That guy must fucking love me by now. Seriously Dave, come back sometime, you were awesome.

Our second most popular video of all time is Dan interviewing "Alan Wake" star Ilkka Villi, although I would assume that many of these hits come from people who are imprisoned in the dark dimension where only Wake-related media can cross the threshold into their realm, which understandably limits their YouTube consumption.

But our most popular video by far is still Todd Shipley's musical performance. Yeah, you guys really, really love Todd, he's got twice as many views as Ilkka and almost three times as many as anyone else. Seriously, what's the deal? Aren't the rest of us good enough for you, or does it have to be all Todd, all the time?

I mean, sure, so maybe none of the rest of us have that velvety twang to their voice, and maybe we can't do things with a guitar that make it safe to assume that butter wouldn't melt on our fingers, and granted, none of us look half that manly in the red checked flannel, and sure, when he smiles his eyes crinkle up like that and you just kind of...get...a little, um, light headed and...yeah....

Oh who am I kidding? Play us out Todd.

We're still checking on that hamster's whereabouts.

Let's face it people, sometimes in life you're just plain upstaged. And by "you", I of course mean "we". We were all totally upstaged at the last show by musical guest The Dime.

The irony, the horribly ironic irony of it all, that by inviting them to appear we were the architects of our own doom!

Personally, I'm used to be outclassed by pretty much everyone in life: my family, my friends, my coworkers, the people I went to college with, the people I went to high school with, the people I went to grade school with, my roommates, my dry cleaner, most of the bus drivers I meet, three fifths of my ex-girlfriends, one out of every ten baristas, plus one or two people who are in vegetative states, but NEVER the musical guest, NEVER until now.

Well fine Dime, we concede the day to you. It was an unfair match. There was no dishonor in it. The simple fact is we were soundly beaten. Heavy frigate like that in the Pacific could tip the war in Napoleon's favor. But by all means, don't take my word for it, watch for yourselves:

Terrifyingly informative.

Let me just say one thing in regards to Marcus' fembot-related update: the man knows his stuff! I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say, the bar scene this weekend would have been a lot uglier if I hadn't been furnished with some of this very helpful advice.

I'm not saying that I had to create a makeshift bunker in a stall in the woman's restroom and defend myself with only an hors d'oeuvres kebab, but, well, I'm not not saying that either. You don't really need to hear about my social life. That'll all be in the next news update.

My brain is stuck on one setting.

Blue Galaxy everyone. I mean, good morning everyone!

Sorry about that. See, The Dime played live at our last show, and, well, I don't know if you've heard "Blue Galaxy", but it's actually pretty catchy. In fact, once you've heard it, it's hard to Blue Galaxy anything else. I mean, think of anything else! Sheesh.

That's just how it's been for the last couple of days. What did I pick up at the store? Blue Galaxy. Who was that on the phone? Blue Galaxy. Once it's in your head, there's basically no room for anything else.

If you don't believe me, just give a little listen for yourself:

THE DIME - "BLUE GALAXY" music video from Andre Welsh on Vimeo.

See what I mean? Before you know it you'll Blue that under your Galaxy for days on end. I mean, sing that under your breath!

Wow, this is getting out of hand. I've got to break the cycle. Everyone, turn up your speakers, open all your windows, and Blue Galaxy until Blue Galaxy and Blue to the Blue up Galaxy total Galaxy.

No, wait, that's not what I meant to Blue Galaxy! I need to Blue Galaxy my Blue Galaxy before the only Blue I can Galaxy is "Blue Galaxy"! Gahh! I'm losing my Blue Galaxy! How am I ever going to be a Blue Galaxy if I the only Blue Galaxies I can use are Blue Galaxy? No one ever had a Blue Galaxy writing the same Blue Galaxy over and over again except for Dean Koontz!

I'm going to Blue two Galaxy and call it a Blue Galaxy. Hopefully by Blue Galaxy I'll have my Blue Galaxy back and this will all seem like a strange Blue Galaxy. Good Blue Galaxy and Galaxy.

"It's not a lake, it's late night..."

In a late night show, the interviewer keeps asking "Why?", but there can be no explanation, and there shouldn't be one. The unanswered interview question is what stays with us the longest, and it's what we'll remember in the end.

Whoa, sorry, got the blog off on an odd foot there. See, I'm having trouble keeping in my head right now, because I just saw this interview with Ilkka Villi, star of "Alan Wake". This interview unsettled me. It was wild and dark and weird, even by my standards.

For some urgent reason I can't remember, I'd been driving too fast down a coastal road to get there. I saw the hitchhiker too late. He was dead, and I was convinced that they'd put me in jail and I'd never see Alice again. But I was in luck; it turned out the hitchhiker was the California Crusher. Naturally, a mere auto collision couldn't harm him. He just wanted a ride to the show.

Of course, that's when my troubles really began. It turned out, there hadn't been a late night show or a studio in that building in thirty years. Which I guess means that it's really amazing that the interview went as well as it did.

Yes, live, via Skype, Finnish actor and "Alan Wake" star Illka Villi chatted with host Dan Sullivan during tonight's taping about his experiences making the hit game, which has been described by some luminaries as being what would happen "if MC Escher was a writer, and also a douchebag."

It's possible that the interview was actually a false memory of a reenactment of something that Dan's shadowy alter ego wrote while under the influence of an otherworldly entity. I know that's when I do my best work.

Lovecraftian overtones aside, the show was a big hit, also featuring documentary filmmaker Windy Borman and Oakland rap group The Dime, and the whole thing should be going viral within a few days. We mean viral as in YouTube, not as in small pox. Although, that spreads pretty fast too.
'
Shooting schedule for April is forthcoming, just as soon as we figure out if this is all really happening or if it's just a story within a story that's being recovered through a dream via the ghost of a previous late night show. Also, once we figure out how to properly light all of these Dark Taken. They're just so...dark.

Radio Ads for Episode 4

Episode 4 Tapes a week from today. Please enjoy these radio ads. Local DJs feel free to call this a PSA.

60 Second Noir


60 Second Sci Fi

Yak fever will soon be a thing of the past.

You might assume from reading this blog, that I'm just some sort of cheap salesman or mercenary hack.

You may even speculate that I'm a tool of a faceless media juggernaut that wants to consume your free time in roughly the same volume as a whale consumess plankton.

Let me assure you that those assumptions are completely accurate. If anything, it's even worse than you think. Just watch:

Shame? Why, we don't know the meaning of the word.

My own "48 Minute Film Project" fell through.

Of course, the Variety Society isn't the only thing going on in our lives. Well, I mean, it is mine, but that's because I'm actually a brain in a jar hooked up to an old dial-up modem, and this blog is my only means of contact with the world. But the other guys around here, they've all got lots of stuff going on.

For example, Viral Media Networks, the folks who bring you such fine fair as "The Variety Society", recently produced this little baby for this year's 48 Hour Film Project. I originally thought 48 Hours was a long runtime, but apparently I misunderstood the concept.

Our own Dan Sullivan and Erik Braa star, alongside a couple of very attractive gals who, perhaps not surprisingly, I've never seen anywhere near our show. Colin Murray, Justin LaneLutter, Brendon Fox, and Sam Jack all weigh in behind the camera.