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

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 2:59 PM, February 15, 2006

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?

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 6:45 PM, February 9, 2006

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!)

All this made me look into the etymology of the phrase "full of shit." Maybe it had more than one meaning? Maybe not? And this is what I found out . . .

Two hundred years ago, a princess name Rooby-Balls made it up. That's it. That's where it comes from. She was French—even though Rooby-Balls is a Dutch name.

So there you have it. Pretty cool? And finally, Body English may be a fine dance club—I couldn't know—I don't like thunder-music and I get scarred around fog (I think it's alive and coming for me.) That's my issue, not yours. It may even be one of the most fun places in Vegas for some. Many people know the expression, "To each his own." However, do you know the rest of it? It's "To each his own, and also, no." Also, it's hard to admit this, but I lied about the etymology of "full of shit." I guess Mr. Anonymous wasn't wrong—he was just foreshadowing.

Mirman Gets Wasted With the Killers

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 4:57 PM, February 2, 2006

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.)

That was my last experience in Vegas. Now, a few years later, I would be staying at THE MANDALAY BAY! Do you know what they have there? An aquarium filled with only PREDATORY FISH! That's right! 2,000 aggressive fish. I didn't go, but I am told they have SEVERAL SMALL SHARKS—with teeth outside their mouths!!! (If you have time, re-read some of the last paragraph, yelling some of the sentences.)

We had one day off on the tour (Gogol Bordello stayed in Phoenix, Cake, who I'm traveling with, flew to Salt Lake City for a show—I drove alone in their tour bus to Vegas, and Tegan and Sara and their crew also went to Vegas.)

You're probably wondering, "What do you do in Vegas with one day off?" (Please wonder that, if you weren't yet.) I'll tell you—you party with local home-town heroes THE KILLERS—by accident.

I didn't know anyone in Las Vegas, and spent most of my day relaxing and losing small amounts of money at roulette. At night, Tegan and Sara's tour manager kindly invited me to the INXS private afterparty at Hard Rock Live (sans members of INXS, as most after-show parties not organized by the band, are often missing that band.) At this party I met various people—managers, bands, Stanford grads, someone going to Harvard Business School who likes the show Laguna Beach (a fact that could have stayed in Vegas—but didn't!) One interesting note about the Hard Rock Hotel is I believe one of The Killers lives there. He has no other home—outside living inside rock and roll. After the open bar at the INXS afterparty was closed, it was time to step into another world.

Just a few doors down—still inside the Hard Rock Hotel—is an awful dance club called Body Bar (named after something in The DaVinci Code—nope. Not true. Now you understand why some people think reality is subjective, but others insist it is objective. This includes Ayn Rand, the band Bread, and Cheney. BTW, what the fuck is The DaVinci Code? I'll probably find out soon, never mind.)

Everybody from the Hard Rock Live bar had gone to the Body Bar, and I actually left a few minutes later. I believe they were all ushered through some secret tunnels into the club (I think someone said that) and then given a private booth—that was not very private. I arrived ten minutes later and found everyone sitting at the very large booth (which sat twenty people on two levels.) And by everyone I mean some of The Killers, some of the Tegan and Sara band and crew, some of their friends, but now, all surrounded by random smiling girls, a body guard, who I at first thought was a particularly attentive tall black friend, and some photographers.

On the table in front of the giant booth was an ice bucket with two bottles of vodka, and carafes with various juices and sodas. Later, I found out it was all free. The club brought it over to help The Killers and pals party. It turns out when you are a rock star, people fucking give you all the cranberry-mother-fucking-juice you want. And we wanted about three carafes worth of juice—and I'm including the orange juice!

One awesome thing about Body Bar—every ten minutes jets of cold, thick fog would shoot from the ceiling onto sweaty, freakishly similar looking, dancing assholes (I'm sure they actually weren't assholes, and in fact I am the asshole for judging people who I don't know, who just want to unwind and have fun. So, sorry. It won't happen again. Just kidding! Of course it will! That's what people do—we go to places and stare at people in disdainful judgment, until we go home alone and think about what we're doing with our lives! That's what fun is!)

What could make Body Bar better? About a half hour after we got there a mostly-living legend arrived. A man whose fame is the result of America's love of the modern freak show mixed with the question, "Why would a man wear a clock?" That's right—bam!—Flavor Flav was in the house. He even got a shout out from the DJ (something I now want—so spread the word—if I'm at your party, you're at my party. Does that make sense? I guess I mean that by my arrival at a party, my level of importance changes whose party it is. No? Oh well.)

Anyway, that was mostly it. Everyone was very nice and the place was loud and terrible and I enjoyed my disdain. I can't wait to go back to New York and hit the club scene in the meatpacking district and try to get a shout out—something you can't do. Similar to the Force, or Buddhism, a Shout Out is something that must find you.