Quarterlife Pounder 12.28.08 What do you like about the holidays?

Hey friends,

This week's episode features an interview with my mom and grandma and a live performance of "Point Free" by Colby Barone.

Also, this week's QLP is a loooooong one. Let me knoooooow if you think 8 minutes is tooooo loooooong fooooor a webshooooow.

Here ya go:



LOVE MARTIAN,
nate

Stand-up in Colorado! This Saturday 12/27 at 8 PM at Cup of Joe in Kittredge

Hey Colorado friends,

I'll be doing a little stand-up shindig this Saturday 12/27 at the Cup of Joe Cafe in Kittredge. I'm not exactly sure what the scene is going to be like, but hey, if you're in the area please stop by. It might be fun. I'll do some songs and whatnot that you've possibly seen online, but I'm going to be doing some brand spankin new stuff, too. Brand spankin; that is my promise to you.

LOVE SAUCER,
nate

Strong Takes: terminal illness

Hey friends,

I've got a new Strong Takes piece online. It is inspired by my five hour delay at JetBlue's new Terminal 5 at JFK last night. If you have a minute, please enjoy terminal illness.

LOVE PORTAL,
nate

Quarterlife Pounder 12.21.08 What would be the movie title for the story of your life?

Hey friends,

Quarterlife Pounder is online!



LOVE YAMS,
nate

Hot Coffee: "We're Under Attack!"

Hey friends,

Howdy howdy howdy, there is a new Hot Coffee Show on the innnnternet! "We're Under Attack!" There is a fun little song at the end. Wowza:


We're Under Attack! from Robbie Mitchell on Vimeo.

LOVE ROOOO,
nate

Quarterlife Pounder 12.14.08 What quality do you want to cultivate in yourself?

Hey friends,

Sorry this one is a little late. I haven't gone to bed yet, so in my book that still counts as Sunday:



Second night in a row I've been up past 5 o'clock in the morning. Working on video projects both nights. Spirits are high. Lack of sleep isn't a bad thing when your waking hours are spent doing what you want to be doing. Spirits are high. Our shoddy internet connection has made tonight's uploading process take about two and half hours, but hey, ain't no use in crying. Spirits are high, spirits are high.



LURV,
nate

this is it, my 2008 Project Direct submission

Hey friends,

Space travel! Memories! Skateboards! Lip balm! Cheeseburgers! All this and more in my 2008 Project Direct submission, "this is it":



Love gobble gobble gobble,
nate

New Hot Coffee - We Are Adults

Hey friends,

There is a new Hot Coffee Show online! I sing a song as one of the Jonas Brothers, Chris has an extended and fairly amazing dub session, and a whole lot more - all in Episode 5: We Are Adults.


LOVE
nate

new Strong Takes: Help from the Homeless

Hey friends,

Every two weeks I write a piece for Strong Takes, an online publication featuring comedic news-based commentary. I have a new piece posted. It features the current economic climate, advice from a homeless person, and a cute picture of a guinea pig. Check it out:

help from the homeless

Let me know what you think!

Love,
nate

Quarterlife Pounder 12.07.08 Who is your favorite band?

Hey friends,

The second episode of Quarterlife Pounder is here:




Gulps of love,
nate

Hot Coffee Show - behind the scenes vid: a trip to the psychic for some financial advice

Hey friends,

Not all of the scenes that we do at Hot Coffee Show make it into the podcast (look for a new one this Monday, by the way...). Here is a special behind the scenes video of one such scene where Jim Cramer makes a visit to his psychic for some financial advice:


Hot Coffee Show: behind the scenes - episode 4 (count darkness) from Robbie Mitchell on Vimeo.

LOVE
nate

Nate on Jesus Lane - the last one

Howdy friends,

I recently finally finished the last installment of the Nate on Jesus Lane video log I did during my year in Cambridge. Thirty-three installments in total. Here is the last one:


Nate on Jesus Lane - #33 - the last one from Nate Dern on Vimeo.

Everlasting gobstopper,
nate

upcoming show...FREE!...stand-up at the Sage on Thursday Dec. 11th

Hey friends,

I'll be doing a ten minute set during an evening of stand-up comedy at the ever illustrious Sage Theater. It will be a couple hours of comedy with me and some other up and coming NYC comics. Should be fun. The details:

Thursday Dec. 11th
10:00 PM
Stand-up at the Sage Theater
711 7th Ave (Times Square)
New York City, NY
Cost: FREE!

Would be raaaaadical to see you there.

Love pots,
nate

Premier of my weekly webshow! QUARTERLIFE POUNDER

Hey friends,

Today is the start of my 25th year of life. To get me through the year, I'm going to be doing a weekly web show. I'm calling it Quarterlife Pounder.



Each week I'm going to discuss a different question with my friend Kellen Johnson and then my good buddy Colby Barone is going to add some musical insight. We'll do some other stuff to, like Nate News updates and other special reports and presentations. It is going to be silly and sweet and tender and sloppy and you should check it out.

I hope you are all doing well and working hard and being kind to each other.

Play fair, be nice.

Love,
nate

Hot Coffee Show - behind the scenes video!

Hey friends,

Here is a BEHIND THE SCENES video from Hot Coffee Show, the weekly improvised comedy podcast that I do. If you like seeing friends laughing with each other, you'll like this viddddddeo:


Hot Coffee Show: behind the scenes - episode 3 (Youkilis) from Robbie Mitchell on Vimeo.

LOVE
nate

two new songs! I am not a hero AND bald man, blind man

Hey friends,

Two new songs online...

"I am not a hero"



"bald man, blind man"



FUN!

BE WELL BE WELL BE WELL!
nate

Stand-up tomorrow (11/26)! Also, New Hot Coffee Show! Ep. 4!

Hey friends,

Reminder, if you're in New York City, I'm doing stand-up tomorrow night. Would be good to see you there! The details...

WHEN: November, 26 2008 - 8:00P (get there at 7:45 to make sure you get a ticket)
WHERE: Stand-Up NY
236 West 78th Street
New York City , NY 10024
COST: $15

Also, Hot Coffee Show episode 4 is up and online! Check it out out out:

Hot Coffee Show, Episode 4

ROCK
nate

I'm doing stand-up next Wed. 11/26 at 8PM at Stand-Up NY!

Hey friends,

I have a show at Stand-Up NY on Wednesday November 26th at 8:00 PM (the day before Thanksgiving). The details:

November, 26 2008 - 8:00P
Stand-Up NY
236 West 78th Street
New York City , NY 10024
Cost: $15

More info: I'll be doing an 8 minute set. There will be some other amateurs doing short sets and also a few pros doing some slightly longer stuff. Should be good. It would be rad to have you there. If you want to come, show up at 7:45 PM to get a ticket, which will cost $15 in cash at the door. This is a bringer show, which means I need people to show up for me, so if you can make it please say that you are there to see "Nate." If you're able to come, please say hello. It would be nice to see you. Send me a message if you have any questions about the show.

Here is a map of the club's location: http://tinyurl.com/5xza6e

Hope you're happy and healthy and working hard and lalala,
nate

new Hot Coffee Show online! Episode 3: When You Coming Home?

Heeeeeeeeeeeeey friends,

New Hot Coffee Show is online! ---> Episode 3: When You Coming Home? --> Check it out! You might just hear me do a SPOT ON Obama impression (not actually that good, don't get your hopes up, but still worth checking out).

http://hotcoffeeshow.com/

I hope you are having a nice day.

nate

Hot Coffee Show - an improv comedy podcast!

Hey friends!

Some college friends and I are starting a podcast! What is a podcast? I don't know! But what we made has current events, riffing, songs, laughing, and a helluva lot of audio effects! Check it out:

http://hotcoffeeshow.com/

I’m really proud of it! Put it on and clean your room! Smile and laugh with a loved one! CHA CHA CHA!

LOVE LOVE LOVE
nate

new video: Nate and Greg (Human Giant video contest)

Hey friends,

I have a new video online for the Human Giant video contest...



Love,
nate

Top Nine Favorite Pixies Songs

Ode to a Dropped Push-Up

Thou still unravish’d pop of icyness,
Thou abandoned bringer of Orange and Cream,
Young child, who canst yet express
The sweet joy with which you teem:
What unfulfilled treat haunts about thy shape,
Of porches or playgrounds, or of both,
In Childhood or the Nights of Summer?
What slippery gloves are these? What clumsy cloth?
What melted puddle? What struggle to escape?
What lips now smack? What a sad bummer.

Internet identities

A friend of mine who is staying with me in my apartment for the week just asked me what I was doing. I replied that I was writing for my blog. She wasn’t sure which one I meant.

It dawns on me that I have acquired several internet identities. By saying that I am writing something for my blog, I could have meant several things, all of which would have been equally plausible:

*the blog on my personal website
*the blog I have on blogspot.com
*the blog that I keep on my MySpace page and update whenever I have comedy news
*the “notes” that I have within the Facebook notes feature
*the video log that I kept during my year abroad
*the bulletin posts on my YouTube channel
*eh...the corrections that I submit to Tila Tequila’s Wikipedia page?

This fragmentation of identity, dear reader, has been observed elsewhere, more astutely and more comprehensively than I am doing here. What I bring to the discussion is the following question:

By keeping so many internet identities, are we trying in vain to preserve ourselves, if only just in part, much like Voldermort with his horxcruxes?

If you do not get the Harry Potter reference, good for you.

(Initially I was trying to formulate some sort of allusion to the Borges story “The Garden of Forking Paths”, but decided against it because it (a) required too much mental energy, (b) struck me as being a bit pretentious, and (c) isn’t actually as relevant a comparison as the Harry Potter one. So while, once again, I applaud you if didn’t get the reference, it still might be in your best interest to go read the first four of five HP books in order to get the comparison I am making.

Either that or just use context to figure it out...Yeah, on second thought, you should definitely just use context.)

The answer to the above question, by the way, is no.

MetroCard bike

This was the second time I’d seen this bike around town, although I guess there could be multiple MetroCard decked out bikes lurking around the city.

I’d like to think that this bike belongs to an eccentric millionaire who completed the decorations by walking to the nearest subway station, purchasing a single ticket, then walking home and carefully applying the ticket with a hot glue gun. I’d like to think that this process was completed with dedication and care over several weeks during a hot and muggy summer. And I’d like to think that after the final MetroCard was applied, the eccentric millionaire stood up, smiled, and rode his masterpiece to a nearby park, preferably one with a fountain and ample space to park a bike.

Five blog entries on a Sunday night

At the beginning of the summer I wrote a blog post saying that I was going to be writing a blog. Although I warned it would be sporadic, over the last period I have been even less consistent than the lowest of the low expectations I had set for myself in this regard.

As penitence, tonight I will be writing five blog entries. This small morsel of repentance is designed to inculcate in my fingers the habit of writing an entry - however trite or tryhardy or short or worthless or jajajaja it may be - more regularly.

This is the first of those five.

The Dark Knight

MOVIE REVIEW TEXTUAL THOUGHT ORGANIZER TO RECORD INITIAL FILM FIRST IMPRESSIONS FOR PERSONAL FUTURE REFERENCE

MOVIE TITLE:
The Dark Knight

THE WAY I INITIALLY TYPED MOVIE TITLE A FEW SECONDS AGO:
The Dark Night

DIRECTOR:
Christopher Nolan

FAMOUS ATHLETE THAT DIRECTOR’S NAME MAKES ME THINK OF:
Nolan Ryan (from Wikipedia: Nolan Ryan played in a major league record 27 seasons. A hard-throwing right-handed pitcher, Ryan threw pitches that were regularly recorded above 100 mph, even past the age of 40. The media tagged him, or more specifically his pitching, as "The Ryan Express", a reference to the 1965 film Von Ryan's Express).

DID IT BEAT SPIDEY?
Yes. The Dark Knight grossed $155.3 million over the opening weekend, breaking the previous record of $151.1 million set by Spider-Man 3 last year.

WHERE I SAW IT:
AMC Empire 25 on 42nd in Times Square

WHEN:
Matinee

FAVORITE PART OF MOVIE GOING EXPERIENCE:
When after a particularly spectacular bat feat a little boy’s voice from somewhere in the packed audience behind me exclaimed in complete sincerity, “Wow!”

FAVORITE PART OF FILM ITSELF:
The short shot from which the above screen still is taken. Even though shown in every trailer I’ve seen, the shot takes on additional weight in the context of the moment it appears in the film.

WHAT THE FILM MADE ME THINK OF:
At some point in my social anthropology studies in college I remember reading about or being told about a tribe somewhere in the world, and I think it was Australia, that did not believe that a dead person should be shown on film. Preliminary attempts to figure out the name of the tribe that I’m thinking or even the particularities of the belief that I’m trying to recall have been unsuccessful. Also possible that I am colliding several memories or imagining this one entirely.

Throughout film, which for the most part swept me away, I would occasionally suspend the suspension of my movie going disbelief and remind myself that Mr. Ledger passed away earlier this year. Then a spectacular bat feat would grab my attention.

I wish I could think of the name of that tribe.

WHAT I PROBABLY SHOULD BE DOING INSTEAD OF WRITING THIS:
Sleeping.

IF YOU SEE ME IN A COFFEE SHOP AND YOU HAVE ALSO SEEN THE DARK KNIGHT AND YOU FEEL LIKE TALKING ABOUT IT, THE SCENE AND TOPIC THAT I WOULD MOST LIKE TO BEGIN THAT DISCUSSION WITH:
The ferry scene and the point made by that scene and the film at large about human nature.

DESIRE TO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT AGAIN?
Yes.

DESIRE TO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT ON I-MAX?
Not really. Unless I’m watching sweeping aerial shots of wildebeests stampeding across the Serengeti with James Earl Jones narrating, I-MAX doesn’t really do it for me.

Au revoir, Angleterre, and thanks for the well good year

Note: This blog entry sufficiently meets the criteria to qualify as a slog.
Additional note: See previous blog entry for explanation and further discussion of slogs.



I’m trying to reflect on my year in England and reach some sort of personal conclusion to help me move on with the next chapter of my life. But as far as activities go, reminiscing seems to be one of the more cliché ridden.

Time went by so fast.

As I look back at my ten months in England, that is about the most profound thought that I can muster. Here, let me try again.

England and the US are different.

Yes, that is true. Maybe a little more specific, Nate?

England is older than the US.

I did see many old buildings in England and observed and even participated in a few old traditions, so I can see where I was coming from with that one. But while England is older than the US in terms of nation state formation, it is not necessarily true in geological terms. It might be. I have no idea, actually. In cosmic terms they’re probably about the same age. Sometimes thinking in cosmic terms comforts me. Sometimes thinking in cosmic terms sends a shiver down my backside and keeps me up at night. Let’s move on.

I am not the same person now that I was when I left.

That is not only a cliché, but a bit of a tautology, too. Of course I’m not the same person. I am ten months older. Ten months of life experiences. Ten months of coffee stains on my teeth. Ten months nearer to my death (at least in terms of a strictly linear perspective of time, and unlike cosmic terms, strictly-linear-perspective-of-time terms don’t seem to ever comfort me). Let’s try again.

England is larger than the US.

Now that one is just an outright lie. Wait. In terms of geography or population, clearly not true. But in terms of fish and chips per capita, England is probably larger than the US. Or in terms of, say, casual conversational usage of the word “well” as an adverb (as in “That party was ace, but I was well tired this morning” or “Did you see that speech by HM the Queen when she opened that new administrative building in Bristol? She was well cheeky”). Okay, maybe I should just try one about how I’m feeling.

It is strange to be back.

That one doesn’t strike me as a cliché per se, but it still presents a problem because how I’m feeling is a bit more complicated than those six words might suggest. It is strange that the routine and life that I’d come to know in England has ended forever, but being back in itself isn’t strange. It is intensely normal. For better or worse, I seem to have immediately settled back into the same way of being with my friends. Which is nice. Comforting. But if I felt like being cynical, I might express some worry about the fact that it was so easy for me to occupy the same old role. Does that mean I haven’t changed? Haven’t grown? Maybe. But maybe ten months just isn’t that long a time and with email and Skype maybe the Atlantic just isn’t that big. Maybe. Then again, maybe I’ve changed in ways that are significant even though I can’t articulate them right now. Maybe those ten months of staining my teeth with English coffee (or, more accurately, South American or African coffee prepared in England) and the conversations that accompanied that staining will manifest themselves in subtle ways. Maybe in expecting some sort of tangible sense of self-progression my thinking is stuck in strictly-linear-perspective-of-life terms. Perhaps there are more useful terms with which to think about my life. Or maybe the search for a conclusion to anything is in itself inherently prone to cliché. Maybe. But all the same, this slog has dragged on long enough so I think some sort of conclusion would just be the courteous thing to do at this point. Okay. Let’s give it one more shot.

It was a well good year.

I’m pretty sure that is an inappropriate use of “well”, but it will have to do. If I have used it incorrectly, then this might be the first occurrence of the phrase, “It was a well good year.” In endeavoring to avoid speaking in cliché, possibly breaking the rules of colloquial grammar is a risk I’m willing to take.

somewhat of a blog...

Dear friends,

I’m going to be writing a blog. This is it, actually. My blog, I mean, not it in some sort of larger sense. You know, not like, “This is it” or “Well, there you have it” or “I’ll take it! And a side order of fries!” This isn’t any of that. This is just my blog.

This past year I tried to do a video log, or vlog. Originally I had planned on doing my vlog somewhat regularly. That didn’t happen. Instead I would put off doing it for a long time, then have a temporary spurt of inspiration where I would do several vlogs in a few days at the expense of my academic work and personal health, only to slip back into a long period of vlog inactivity, one of the saddest types of inactivity in my opinion. One reason for this inactivity was my own doubting of my vlogging ability. I had set some lofty goals; I believe in the first entry I mentioned using the vlog to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. That was hard to live up to and it didn’t happen. Not in the way I thought it would, anyway. And then I felt a pressure to be funny with the vlogs, which led to me wanting to rebel against having to be funny by attempting to be earnest (not that those two things are opposite or mutually exclusive), which in turn led to me looking back on those attempts of earnestness (which usually took the form of a voiceover) and cringing. Not that being earnest should necessarily induce cringing, I just think that I overcompensated a bit and perhaps tried a little too hard; at one point in a video about spending the day in London I said something about “just wanting to look for moments of authenticity that I could relate to” - what the heck does that even mean?

Still, I learned a lot from doing it. In fact, seeing as how I’m still working on it, I’m still learning. I’ve got a few more ideas for vlog entries I want to make. You can see the whole thing here:

http://myspace.com/nateonjesuslane/

All of this is to say that even though it (again, not it in any larger sense, just my vlog) didn’t exactly turn out how I had originally imagined, and even though there are a few entries that I would probably be embarrassed to watch with other people in the room, in the end I’m glad that I did it. So, I’m going to do it (some sort of blog) again.

At this point I’m not sure what form this blog will take. I’m sort of an egotistical bozo, so I imagine I’ll make a lot of self-referential entries about new comedy videos that I put up online (a selfish blog, or a slog). And recently I’ve been writing news based commentary for Strong Takes (http://strongtakes.com/) under the alias Mello Costelvis. I’ve been getting a kick out of it, so I might do some entries on current events (news bloggin’, or noggin). I might offer some personal reflections (personal blog, or pog) and I might talk about my favorite hobby (Pogs). I also might get busy with work and life outside of the blogosphere and never write another entry. We’ll just have to see.

So. Welcome to my blog/slog/noggin/pog.

In short: this is it.