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Oscar for Best Movie Trailer: 'Backdraft II: Backdraftier'

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For a while I was mildly obsessed with the idea of making sequels to movies that needed no sequels. Not because the movies were good or bad, just because it would be weird and unnecessary. Say there was a sequel to the movie Frequency? There could be. Why though? All the loose ends were tied up in the first. How about a sequel to Cold Mountain? Nope. What if there was War of the Worlds II (where it turns out another alien race had also planted machines in the ground even before the aliens we know about—fuck! Not again?! We're so fucked! Unless the second alien race also didn't consider the dangers of microbes! Suckers!)

However, by sequel, I don't mean an actual sequel. I mean a three minute movie that has little to do with the original. Sometimes I would mention this idea to voiceover artist/ comedy-therapist/ entrepreneur Jon Benjamin (who co-hosts a monthly talk show called Midnight Pajama Jam with rebel-comic Jon Glaser, where they interview fake guests.) For one of these shows Jon, real-life talk show host Sam Seder, and I shot Backdraft II: Backdraftier. I don't remember the original movie that well, but it was definitely about firemen. And so is this one. Here is the movie.

Is Mirman the New James Frey?

Though I was not trying to create a stir with my last entry, I guess I did. First of all, let me say that I made some factual mistakes. As an immigrant, I am dedicated to two things—justice, honesty, and job usurpation. (I listed a third to create a hole in time. It obviously didn't work. Whatevs.) I would like to apologize to everyone for getting some things wrong. Some corrections—the dance club in Las Vegas that I was at is not called "Body Bar," it's called "Body English." And though I thought INXS was not there, they were. I fucked up and I'm sorry. (What I maybe didn't make clear was the INXS after party I was referring to was not the one at Body English, it was the one before it in the Simon Room of the Hard Rock Live. And I may even be wrong about that.)

Either way, for my last entry, I got many comments—some nice, some that corrected me, some mean and weird, and some that made little sense. However, only one was from a lonely place—a place that's dark—like a cave (where, as we all know, terror lives) posted by an anonymous person—"Kerry Simon threw INXS the party, they were there with the Killers. The bar is called Body English and you're full of shit."

My god, that is so much information for two sentences. First of all, let me say that I was lying when I said that the comment was posted from a lonely place. I don't really know. However much time I've watched the various Law and Orders (I'm counting—Law and Order: Order Time, Law and Order: Ouch Patrol, Law and Order: Criminal Children, and of course Law and Order: DRUGS) I still can't figure out the psychological profile of a person from a sentence. I can figure out these things: The person was either there or knows some of the people involved, seems to care, and thinks I am "full of shit." Typically, "full of shit" means lying. I'm clearly not lying—though I did get some things wrong. I definitely don't like dance clubs (this is true I don't), I was there (I was) and I have two magic powers (one is Heat Face—it works like heat vision—but from the entire face, and laser-hands, which sadly don't work anymore—damn you Dr. Vaseline!)More >>

Mirman Gets Wasted With the Killers

Currently I am traveling our fairly great nation as part of the Unlimited Sunshine Tour, with Cake, Tegan and Sara, and Gogol Bordello. A few days ago we did a show in Las Vegas. I'd only been to Vegas once before. Quick fact—Vegas is short for Las Vegas (just a little FYI. I wouldn't want to be caught droppin' slang like boom-boom. WHAT?!)

Like three or four years ago I was briefly almost working with an awful agency. (They were sort of sleazy in a 1930s bar room hoodlum way. When I first met them, one of them pointed at a waitress at a comedy club and said something like, "Check out the skirt.") I was going to L.A. for a showcase for them and also to maybe meet with random industry people about something crappy. The showcase was on a Wednesday and the meetings were the following week. So to kill some time, my maybe-to-be agents booked me eight shows in a room they ran in Vegas.

The room, which was off the main strip in a sad hotel, was filled with mostly old people and sprinkled with tough-looking families. It was an incredible mismatching of audience to performer. I was supposed to do two twenty minute sets a night for four days. Things went poorly and I only did the first two shows. After my first set, the host, trying to be helpful, asked me if I had any Jewish jokes or fart jokes—he was in luck—I have a joke about a farting Jew! It's about a lawyer-accountant who goes to Mexico in 1860 and finds himself locked inside a bean!!! Guess how he gets out?!?!?! Sadly, I actually don't have a joke about a farting Jew. (I do have a few jokes about being Jewish, but they aren't about over-feeding grandmothers, but cynical attacks on the status-quo. That's also not true, but that sounded very "Smart-Gressive," which is a new brand of comedy that Dennis Miller would like to have made up for himself, but couldn't—because he is limited by his obsession to compare things inaccurately.)More >>

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