Reid Levin is a New York City writer, actor and comedian who is currently undergoing treatment for leukemia in his hometown of Denver, CO.
Reid writes and acts in sketch comedy videos and performs with Better Than The Machine around the country. He is a regular contributor to the humor website Smosh.com. Reid is also the co-creator of the NBC comedy webseries The Guys in 3A.
Reid acts in commercials and films, and has lent his voice to several cartoons.
Since my last entry, I’ve missed several topics I wish I’d blogged about. Knowing full well from prior experience that if I gave each of these many topics their own posts, I would quickly feel overwhelmed and, just as quickly, give up. So I decided to write about each of these many topics in one entry I’ve dubbed a “twitlog.” Aware of my propensity for verbose verbiage, I decided to treat each story as a Twitter post by limiting each of them to 140 characters. Onward!
-Last Vid: Bobby Fitzsimmons (of screen & stage) vlogs. Los: great! But whycome so few hits for funny video? I want to play Bobby’s cousin.
-New Vid: Crazy lady thinks cat is her son; boyfriend aghast. YT Comedy Spotlight! Moms Day dedication: to all moms, not just the crazy ones.
-New “Give A Shit” lyrics: Earthquakes, volcanoes and the oil spill/My candidate still says, “Drill, Baby, Drill!”
Whew, okay I think that does it. This turned out to be a fun challenge. Maybe I’ll wind up making more of these. We’ll see how I feel about it a few days out. At any rate, I enjoyed doing this enough to create a new category for these things (’cause you know, this entry wasn’t already in enough categories).
For the record, “twitlog” is a double portmanteau, and I love me some portmanteaus. First, of course, there’s the Twitter-weblog combination, which is an apt description of all these Twitter-style stories in my blog. Second is the more self-derisive combination of “twit” and “log”; with the “twit” being myself, and this effort being the only “log” of what happened in the unintended space between more frequent and detailed blog posts.
Every time I think Glenn Beck has reached the absolute, ultimate pinnacle of Mt. Crazy, he ups the ante in ways mankind will not truly be able to understand for several hundred generations. In fact, we as a species may never evolve to a point where we can fully appreciate what a lord of lunacy Beck really is. However, as evidenced below, we can certainly have fun trying.
For both a great rundown and a solid analysis of Glenn Beck’s latest and, to date, most successful attempt to fit both his feet inside his mouth at the same time, check out “Jesus was a Nazi. So’s your preacher” from Roger Ebert’s Journal. Ebert exposes what I’ve long suspected: “Beck loads up from the shelves of the Discount Screwball Supermart.” I knew that Hummer (the one with the “W” sticker on the bumper) in their parking lot looked familiar.
As far as what I have to say on the issue, I’ve only got two words: oh, Jesus.
Keep up the good work, Glenn. You’re like an infant: I may not understand you, but I can derive hours of fun and enjoyment giving it a shot. Also, you burst into tears a lot for no apparent reason. (Do you need to be burped?)
I got to see CAKE live in Boulder tonight with the guy who first introduced me to CAKE’s music 14 years ago at Campus Middle School. CAKE was invited to etown, a radio variety show that records in the Boulder Theater. The show includes interesting artists playing music and being interviewed, along with some other neat stuff. etown is heard here (Denver) on KBCO (97.3), and also on NPR. It’s on stations all across the country (and the world).
CAKE is of particular interest to a place like Boulder and a show like etown since they converted their recording studio to run entirely on solar energy and they give away trees at shows and they are pretty darn opinionated. They noted that they’ve really scared off a lot of their Mid-West and Southern fans. We got to hear some new CAKE songs, some old CAKE songs and a totally unrelated live phone call to a lady in Florida who won an etown award for starting a volunteer organization that helps the homeless. Another guy played music and was interviewed too, but I found him to be totally devoid of noteworthiness. Other than him, it was great. They announced tonight that there is going to be a special Denver etown recording on November 8 at the Paramount Theater featuring Playing For Change. That’s pretty tempting to go to, also. (If you don’t know who they are, do yourself a favor and just click that link.)
I’m glad I got to finally see an etown show and I’m glad I got to see CAKE! They played “Wheels,” “Jolene” (their usual encore song… played as their encore song), “Stickshifts and Safety Belts” and three new songs. The new stuff was really neat, and some was so new, John McCrea, the lead vocalist and vibraslapist, had lyrics on a piece of paper. They also played “Sympathy For The Devil,” which, if you know anything about CAKE’s setup, sounded very different from the Rolling Stones’ original song.
–Reid.
ADDENDUM 10/20: CAKE played one other song that I can’t believe I forgot. John McCrea said one of the great tragedies of the last century was the fall of the 3/4 time signature and that people fear 3/4 time. Then they played “Mexico,” an old, sad CAKE tune in 3/4 time.
I just stumbled upon a copy of the ESPN/Alltel Wireless “My Circle My Picks” commercial that I was in back in ’07. It’s called “Wide Circle” and has something to do with college football. This was the first national commercial in which I acted. It was filmed around the time I started noticing that I was getting sick, and I had all-but given up hope on ever finding a copy until I randomly came across it tonight.
It was directed by Harold Einstein, who (rumor and a bit of Wiki-ing has it) is related to comedy brothers Albert Brooks and Bob “Super Dave Osborne” Einstein. It was a lot of fun, and since then, I’ve seen several of the other guys from this spot in other commercials. They were all nice guys, so that’s really cool. Oh, and the great NCAA football commentator Lee Corso was there and he, too, was very nice. I will admit that *ahem* I had to look up who he was after I met him.
It was a great experience, and I’m glad I finally get to share it with all of you! And, wouldn’t you know it, it’s really, really weird.
Check out this new video I made in Denver with some help from my friends. It is my proposal to Maurice Sendak about creating a sequel to his beloved children-of-all-ages picture book Where The Wild Things Are. Hey, the movie version of the book is coming out after all these years, so it could happen. Featuring my sister Rachel, my buddy Loren and my dog Ferris Bueller!
Written, Directed and Edited by Reid Levin
Photography by Loren Knaster
Starring: Reid Levin, Loren Knaster, Rachel Levin and Ferris Bueller the dog
Special thanks to Marci Rottler for location scouting!
I’m sure that you’ve all heard about Kanye West’s latest antics at the 2009 MTV VMA’s. He’s taken a lot of flak for what he did to Taylor Swift.
I just want to point out that Better Than The Machine was giving Kanye West flak over two years ago. In fact, we’ve been at the forefront of the “Fuck You, Kanye West!” movement for several years. Check it out in our music video Give A Shit:
And make sure to download the MP3 version to show your solidarity against Kanye!
Just saw Demetri Martin live at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House (which in itself was really neat) at the DCPA with my folks. There were a thousand people in the audience, and Martin basically just spouted off unrelated one-liners for two solid hours (definitely cut from the Steven Wright cloth, like another one of my favorite super-lanky comedians). It was one of the best stand up shows I’ve seen. I highly recommend checking Martin out if you’re not familiar with him. He has a show on Comedy Central (Important Things With Demetri Martin) that combines stand up and sketch comedy that I like quite a lot. He was also on Flight of the Conchords and The Daily Show, for a few episodes (of both).
I’d like to say it’s definitely worth checking out his material before he gets big, but I guess I arrived a little late to the Demetri Martin game. Now I’m going to fall asleep watching The Tick (the animated series) and hopefully have funny dreams.
I’m coming back to The City next week for the beginning of writing the next Better Than The Machine show–it’s ninth show since it’s inception in 2003. Will will be there. I am very excited!!
Michael Jackson died yesterday. He was a great musician before he was a public weirdo–I think that’s eventually how people will remember him. I wonder what’s happening to his kids; he had three of them, who certainly had no mother in their lives. Odd.
I saw The Hangover on Father’s Day with my dad. It was the best comedy movie I have seen in years. I don’t often say this, but if you like to laugh, you must see this movie. Must! Well, unless you’re prudish in any way, in which case I would say you probably would not like this movie as much. But even my mom liked it. My mom!
Is it any more silly than rooting for someone for a reason totally out of your control, such as where you were born?
Anyway, my dad, my sisters, and I are going to Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals (basketball) tonight to see the Denver Nuggets tie the series at 2-2 against the Los Angeles Kobe Bryants.
It’s gonna be a blast.
–Reid.
Addendum: I am a fair weather fan of certain sports, not certain teams. I’ll always root for Denver or Colorado. Right now, I am a basketball fan supporting the Nuggets. Two years ago, when the Rockies made it to the playoffs, I was a baseball fan. I will always be a Denver supporter. So I guess I’m pretty silly in all respects when it comes to sports fandom.
