the virtual Jenny Vaudeville Show
The Jenny Vaudeville show this Wednesday night was attended by many, but for those of you inconveniently located outside of New York, here is my recounting of the show, so chock full of multimedia that you can sort of pretend you were there. Photos are courtesy of Ryan Brenizer.
Jen opening the show
I opened up with some observations on recent events, including being single and having a new crockpot (it only makes one thing, and that thing is stew).
I try to keep the Jenny V. show civilized, but I couldn't help commenting on a poster I had seen on the subway. An ad for a support hotline said "You weren't alone before HIV. You're not alone now." Way to rub it in! No, you weren't alone before HIV. In fact, there's a very good chance you had someone else's cock in your ass, which is physically incompatible with being alone.
Is a crockpot a good boyfriend substitute?
And, moving along ... our first act was musical comedian Aaron Haber, who began with a song entitled "I'm sad," which at various points in the song was rhymed with the words "mad" and "bad." The IQ level of the room was thereafter raised noticably when Mr. Haber launched into a war protest song ... against the Peloponnesian War.
Aaron Haber
Mr. Haber also performed a song (link below) about his deceased ex-girlfriend.
I know you're burning in the flaming pits of hell/
but you wouldn't f*ck me anymore, so I guess it's just as well
The Jenny Vaudeville show alternates its booked acts with contests in which audience members may win prizes. The first contest was "extreme spelling," in which one volunteer (actually, performer Aaron Haber, feeling the need to return to the stage so soon after leaving) attempted to spell the phrase "perseverance and prominence" (both among the 250 most misspelled words in the English language) to the tune of the alphabet song. He gave up around "s" and began adding silent q's and various other misplaced letters. Very funny. He received the consolation prize, a box of Jell-O.
Megan Rudesill
Previous Williamsburg Spelling Bee winner Megan Rudesill volunteered for the next challenge, correctly spelling "excavation" backwards. She won a real prize, which was a CD from Schaffer the Darklord.
Thaddeus Rutkowski
Thaddeus Rutkowski, author of two novels and a series of chapbooks called "The Sex Fiend Monologues," performed several spoken word pieces, including one about having a fetish for women in bathing caps. While other guys in the college dorms wanted to go on panty raids, he wanted to go on skullcap raids.... The piece also referred to trying to lure women into the shower, while frightening them about getting their hair wet. Thad performed this piece while wearing a shower cap.
Jen opening the show
I opened up with some observations on recent events, including being single and having a new crockpot (it only makes one thing, and that thing is stew).
I try to keep the Jenny V. show civilized, but I couldn't help commenting on a poster I had seen on the subway. An ad for a support hotline said "You weren't alone before HIV. You're not alone now." Way to rub it in! No, you weren't alone before HIV. In fact, there's a very good chance you had someone else's cock in your ass, which is physically incompatible with being alone.
Is a crockpot a good boyfriend substitute?
And, moving along ... our first act was musical comedian Aaron Haber, who began with a song entitled "I'm sad," which at various points in the song was rhymed with the words "mad" and "bad." The IQ level of the room was thereafter raised noticably when Mr. Haber launched into a war protest song ... against the Peloponnesian War.
Aaron Haber
Mr. Haber also performed a song (link below) about his deceased ex-girlfriend.
I know you're burning in the flaming pits of hell/
but you wouldn't f*ck me anymore, so I guess it's just as well
The Jenny Vaudeville show alternates its booked acts with contests in which audience members may win prizes. The first contest was "extreme spelling," in which one volunteer (actually, performer Aaron Haber, feeling the need to return to the stage so soon after leaving) attempted to spell the phrase "perseverance and prominence" (both among the 250 most misspelled words in the English language) to the tune of the alphabet song. He gave up around "s" and began adding silent q's and various other misplaced letters. Very funny. He received the consolation prize, a box of Jell-O.
Megan Rudesill
Previous Williamsburg Spelling Bee winner Megan Rudesill volunteered for the next challenge, correctly spelling "excavation" backwards. She won a real prize, which was a CD from Schaffer the Darklord.
Thaddeus Rutkowski
Thaddeus Rutkowski, author of two novels and a series of chapbooks called "The Sex Fiend Monologues," performed several spoken word pieces, including one about having a fetish for women in bathing caps. While other guys in the college dorms wanted to go on panty raids, he wanted to go on skullcap raids.... The piece also referred to trying to lure women into the shower, while frightening them about getting their hair wet. Thad performed this piece while wearing a shower cap.
Performer Link: Thaddeus Rutkowski
Text Link: The Mad Capper
Text Link: The Mad Capper
After Thad, I ran our next contest, called "Comedy Trivia." Three volunteers, Brian, Mark, and Pat, came to the stage to each answer three trivia questions. Contestants are awarded two points for a correct answer and one point (or some fraction to be determined by me) for an incorrect but funny answer. I think one of the contestants answered a question by saying that the name of the elephant who "heard a Who" in Dr. Suess's book was Micheal Moore, which earned five-eighths of a point, but Brian ended up winning with the only correct answer in the round -- the word deliberately left out of the movie version of "The Godfather" was, of course, "mafia." Brian won copies of Thaddeus Rutkowski's chapbooks, "The Sex Fiend Monologues" I, II, and III.
Brian, Mark, and Pat answer comedy trivia
Normally the Jenny V. show has four performers and I emcee, but this evening I took the third spot myself to perform a "live egg donation." I read a bit from an article I wrote about egg donation, talked a bit about the class issues involved in selecting egg donors versus surrogate mothers (it's like you take Felicity's eggs and put them in Roseanne), and then handed out hard-boiled eggs to the audience.
These people have eggs
When my egg carton was empty and I returned to the mic, I asked the recipients to turn the eggs over and tell everyone what was written on them. "Billy is famous!" said someone. "Mary Jane is famous!" Yes, I named all my eggs. Schaffer the Darklord received "Varla is famous."
An audience member holds "Justine is famous"
Our final contest was the monthly "Guess the Author," in which I read from a famous piece of literature and people shout out author names until someone gets it right. Previous authors have included Dostoevsky, Brautigan, and Machiavelli. This time it was the poem "The Little Old Lady in Lavendar Silk," in which the speaker, aged seventy-seven, declares she "shall shortly be losing my bloom," and that, in the end, nothing was more fun than a man. "Walt Whitman!" someone yelled out, which was funny (someone also yelled out "Maya Angelou!") but Megan was the first person to yell out "Dorothy Parker!", thus winning herself my CD.
Finally, our headliner, Schaffer the Darklord took the stage. I have seen him many times at his (now-concluded) variety show at Apocalypse Lounge, where he was often performing for an audience who knew his material already. However, this audience was composed almost entirely of Darklord virgins and Schaffer's old standards were met with raucous laughter and applause.
Schaffer the Darklord
Schaffer opened with "The Rappist" (which is what he wishes to be called instead of a "rapper"), in which he promises never to end his lyrics with prepositions. Schaffer then moved into "Attack of the Clonefucker," "Cat People," and his newest song, "Scorpio."
Clonefucker, it'll be like humping the mirror
Schaffer's arrangements ("Cat People" contains sound effects from his actual cat) have never sounded as good as they did on the tiny Pete's stage.
Jen and Schaffer
After the show, one audience member suggested I should have received a "standing ovulation." Ha. Brian Van emailed later to say:
Brian, Mark, and Pat answer comedy trivia
Normally the Jenny V. show has four performers and I emcee, but this evening I took the third spot myself to perform a "live egg donation." I read a bit from an article I wrote about egg donation, talked a bit about the class issues involved in selecting egg donors versus surrogate mothers (it's like you take Felicity's eggs and put them in Roseanne), and then handed out hard-boiled eggs to the audience.
These people have eggs
When my egg carton was empty and I returned to the mic, I asked the recipients to turn the eggs over and tell everyone what was written on them. "Billy is famous!" said someone. "Mary Jane is famous!" Yes, I named all my eggs. Schaffer the Darklord received "Varla is famous."
An audience member holds "Justine is famous"
Our final contest was the monthly "Guess the Author," in which I read from a famous piece of literature and people shout out author names until someone gets it right. Previous authors have included Dostoevsky, Brautigan, and Machiavelli. This time it was the poem "The Little Old Lady in Lavendar Silk," in which the speaker, aged seventy-seven, declares she "shall shortly be losing my bloom," and that, in the end, nothing was more fun than a man. "Walt Whitman!" someone yelled out, which was funny (someone also yelled out "Maya Angelou!") but Megan was the first person to yell out "Dorothy Parker!", thus winning herself my CD.
Finally, our headliner, Schaffer the Darklord took the stage. I have seen him many times at his (now-concluded) variety show at Apocalypse Lounge, where he was often performing for an audience who knew his material already. However, this audience was composed almost entirely of Darklord virgins and Schaffer's old standards were met with raucous laughter and applause.
Schaffer the Darklord
Schaffer opened with "The Rappist" (which is what he wishes to be called instead of a "rapper"), in which he promises never to end his lyrics with prepositions. Schaffer then moved into "Attack of the Clonefucker," "Cat People," and his newest song, "Scorpio."
Clonefucker, it'll be like humping the mirror
Schaffer's arrangements ("Cat People" contains sound effects from his actual cat) have never sounded as good as they did on the tiny Pete's stage.
Jen and Schaffer
After the show, one audience member suggested I should have received a "standing ovulation." Ha. Brian Van emailed later to say:
Yeah, I ate little Justine is Famous. She was tasty. *burp*Syd wrote:
In my experience, rapping and egg donations have always been sure-fire crowd pleasers. I hear that's what put Nancy Sinatra on the map.And Thaddeus Rutkowski sent this:
Our 4-year-old daughter found your "Billy is Famous" egg this morning and asked, "Who's in this egg?" Hard to answer.The next Jenny Vaudeville Show will be Wednesday, October 12, and will feature fire eating and free rubber duckies.
posted by JenIsFamous at 9/17/2005 01:02:00 AM
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