Attention, lovers! A special Valentine’s edition of our award-winning segment. (note: not award-winning) (note: yet)
Old radio interviews with Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black
In honor of turning over a new leaf and focusing on the future, I decided to repost some interviews from three or four years ago. Two years ago? I forget when these were. Mostly I did this because I realized I could grab the code and put them here and that they weren’t stuck, like pubic hairs in amber, on my fossilized MySpace page. Jesus Christ, what kind of MySpace page do I have anyway? That is the appropriate question. Anyway, I can’t actually bear to listen to these, but maybe you can. They were the first radio interviews I’d ever conducted, by the way, so be gentle!
I'd make a shitty chicken
A wise chicken doesn’t cackle until she lays an egg or something, but that’s not my style and plus if I were a chicken I’d much rather be the kind that plays piano. Probably something light, like Debussy. I know what you’re thinking: Do I take tips? Yes I do. I refer you to the tip jar on the side of my baby grand. They wanted to get me a concert grand since I’m performing at a pretty big concert hall however I explained that I wasn’t the biggest chicken (I actually said I wasn’t the biggest “cock on the walk” and we all had a good laugh at that) and therefore a concert grand would be using a hatchet to remove a fly from my friend’s beak.
I mean, I want the main thing you notice on that stage to be me and my amazing plumage first, then my romantic (and I mean that in the Platonic sense of the word) and moving playing, and then the light show and then you are free to notice the piano. And the tip jar. Please notice that. But I mean, I don’t want to be upstaged by my instrument.
But back to the tip jar. If you aren’t able to ascend the steps at Carnegie Hall (yes, that’s where I’m performing the works of Debussy) then we’re sending a collection plate out into the crowd.
What’s that? There aren’t any steps? I simply flap my wings and fly over the orchestra pit to get to the stage but I don’t really know how it would work for you. And I know what you’re thinking again: You’re wondering why I’m flying over the orchestra pit instead of entering the stage from backstage where I’ll be nibbling on various vittles kept warm on chafing dishes, as per my contract rider? Look, I’m a pretty down the earth chicken and I find that when I take the stage from the audience it really starts things off on the right foot. It’s my way of saying that I don’t OWN the music. I’m merely a vessel through which it speaks/lives/breathes.
Am I getting too lofty? I do that sometimes. In the coop where I periodically pass the time I’m kind of known as an intellectual. Some think I’m snobby but I’m really not. I just want to know what came before me, and what came after me, and how I fit in.
I read a lot of Nietzsche. I went through an Orwell phase but it hit a little close to home, as you can probably imagine.
1984. It was the year of my birth. Why, what did you think I was referring to?
Anyway, I have to go practice on my Casio keyboard which I keep in my mobile dressing room. A lot of people wonder how I practice and that’s how.
Oh and P.S. it looks as if I’ll be interviewing a certain Michael Showalter in a video/vlog soon. Happy Valentine’s Day!
NOTE: If you want to hear the old radio interviews I did with Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black go to my seldom-updated Myspace page and scroll down on the right side, after the videos, and there is a gray box with the interviews.
Wherein we try to remember the most interesting conversation EVER!
Anna and I try to remember The Most Interesting Conversation Either Of Us Have Ever Had.
Also, what’s up with my voice? I sound like my sister to me in this one, which probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone here. Speaking of voices, Anna is losing her voice and so I told her we had to vlog last night to capture her ephemeral husky voice. I don’t know if she’s looked at the video yet. I’m totally blog baiting her right now. Vlog-baiting?
I'm on Red Eye on Monday–wait, no I'm not.
Remember how I was going to be on Red Eye tonight? Well shit happens, things change, people disappoint you. I mean, grow up, you babies. What, you think I can spoon feed you air dates forever? I have to go to France to find myself! Maybe I’ll grow my hair out and burn my bra and burn the turnips I’ve been making for supper every single night since the great turnip famine. Maybe I don’t even know HOW I like my turnips. Maybe I never stopped to think IF I like turnips. Maybe I’ll get my ears pierced and not just one hole in each ear but two! I’m telling you, I’m CRAYZEE like that and I might just do it. I would need to pass it by your father and my pastor first, but then I totally might get genuine diamanelle studs in each ear, twice. But what will the women at the auxiliary club think? They just know me as Helen. Trusty ol‘ Helen who makes turnips and fudge and doesn’t have extramarital affairs or pierced ears.
Who said anything about an extramarital affair? Is it getting hot in here? I have to go check on my turnips before Ned and the kids get home. Ned’s indigestion has been pretty bad lately and Lewis entered his solar system in the science fair and I do hope he got at least a ribbon. I stayed up half the night painting Uranus.
Oh, just out of plaster of Paris and acrylic tempura paints.
At the start of this email I was going to tell you how I was rescheduled for Monday but in the course of writing it I found out there was a bit of booking confusion and so I’m not on Monday but will be on next week. I feel the not Monday thing isn’t certain though. So we’ll see.
These photos aren't as dark
Please note the hot Rudolph action happening on my nose and also my cheeks a little bit. I still don’t know WHY it happens, but I can feel it happening. “My face is red, isn’t it…” I’ll say. And then the person I’m talking to will either say it isn’t and that I’m imagining it, or they’ll say ‘um, I guess kind of?’ or they’ll say ‘yes’ at which point I know I’m reaching angry tomato levels of ruddiness. Don’t be jealous!
My old party trick
Delightfully dark picture of Anna, me and Natali
Brighter photos to come.
Oh and last night Natali got recognized by someone which I didn’t think much of because she’s all over the place but then it turned out he’d specifically recognized her from Red Eye and upon hearing this—or rather upon Anna telling me this was what was going on—I tried my best to dangle my very memorable and arguably exquisite face in his sight line. I mean, I all but sat in his lap. But Anna Who Could See The Conversation And Make Out What He Was Saying told me that evidently he’d only seen one episode… featuring Natali.
It’s cool though because I recognized myself and made a big to-do until finally I had to have one of my handlers tell me to cool it because I was freaking out “the talent,” which is how I refer to myself to myself.
About whether to watch the videos here or on Anna's blog
I mean, both, obviously!!
But I bring it up because it’s come up in the comments and it’s something Anna and I are figuring out as well. If I had my druthers—and sadly I can’t remember the last place I saw them, I mean, I know they didn’t just walk out of here on their own!!!!!!—we would both post the videos and then you would see them here and there and we’d also put them in your apartment and on your ceiling and in the back of a cab* and one day we would broadcast them straight to the insides of your eyelids. And then we’d GO VIRAL! I’m not even sure what that means but I think it means that fans would shed tiny bits of Anna and my embed code. I’m joking, I know what GO VIRAL means in this sense but I just don’t know how to do it. Must we insert a shrimp on a treadmill into our videos? Or a dancing hamster? An erudite gopher? Can you guys help us in our quest for being contagious on an epic scale? We’re very blood born. Also, we mutate. Also, don’t watch our videos if you have cuts in your mouth. Just kidding! You can totally watch our videos if you have cuts in your mouth! In fact, we insist on it!
So but just wanted to bring this conversation into the open since you’re having it in the comments and we’re having it in the hot tub where we like to hang out and do our thinking. Have at her!
So, just to round it all up. There is this site which you are well acquainted with. And there’s Anna’s blog which you also know. And then both of us have youtube pages.
youtube.com/alisonrosen
youtube.com/overannalyze
*not really because let’s face it: everyone shuts that shit off the second they slide into a cab.
I Q&A vlogged for you!
Part 1 (by the way, I’m not sure I made it clear that the journal entry I refer to is from almost 10 years ago. Hence, retro awesomeness.)
Part 2:
And can we talk for a moment about how horrifically horrible the still shot for this video is? I look inbred. WHICH I’M NOT.