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.
I finally got ahold of some of the pictures from Better Than The Machine’s trip to Florida in 2007 (Project Breakout Champs–woo!) that I’ve been bugging people for since the day we got home. Thanks Carlos! Here’s a sampling:
Traveling so very early. Carlos, wake up!!! You have to drive us!
Miami!
Hey kids, smoking’s not cool. It just makes you look cool.
There’s no time for rules when it’s time to relax! I am not passed out in this picture, I just giggled my way to the ground.
In this picture, however, I am most definitely passed out.
Thanks again, Los.
–Reid.
Addendum: It turns out I owe thanks to Christina for taking the last picture. Thanks a whole bunch, CR.
It’s at the National Comedy Theater (347 W. 36th St., between 8th & 9th), the former home of Sketchblock Sundays. I wonder if they have anything to do with each other.
The great and friendly Chris and Paul Show, The High Scores, and maybe Chocolate Cake City will be performing. We will have some new material, some old material, and some old material played off as new material, with me in it. That’s right. All five machines!! Be there! What are you even waiting for?!
Get in line now! Bring tents! (Don’t really bring tents.)
Monday’s video, “The Wingman,” was created for a online Jim Beam commercial contest. We didn’t win, but the video’s still really funny! There’re three others that we’ll be releasing eventually. This one was directed and edited by Ballard and features his somewhat famous friend and very talented actor and improviser Meg DeFrancesco (she’s appeared on the The Colbert Report and at the Upright Citizens Brigade, both many times).
Remember: new videos are posted every Monday at betterthanthemachine.net. Why don’t you just go ahead and do yourself a favor and sign up for our email list? It’s on our homepage under “Contact”. All the cool kids are doing it!
I am in The City and I am of The City; The City and I are one. And we are one hot and tired City/man combination! I say this to you foul sun: give up your evil heatwaving ways, for you face… The Tick!
No wait, no. That’s not right at all.
You face me sitting in front of this air conditioner for two whole weeks! A foul and ill tempered sun indeed; and humidity… does Mother Nature know no more wretched form of evil?!
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.
“Nearly every chemotherapy patient experiences short-term problems with memory and concentration. But about 15 percent suffer prolonged effects of what is known medically as chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment.
“The symptoms are remarkably consistent: a mental fogginess that may include problems with memory, word retrieval, concentration, processing numbers, following instructions, multitasking and setting priorities.”
I forgot to mention this in my previous post, although I’ve been thinking about it for a few days.
I had written the video that was released today before I got sick. It’s interesting to consider that by having to leave the scene for awhile due to my Leukemia, the sketch became much more topical in 2009 than it would’ve been in 2007.
Additionally, I guess I really have to consider that in 2007, when the script was set in a subway, it probably would’ve simply been shelved because a) Paul has a legitimate fear of getting punched in the nose by someone on the subway who doesn’t want to be filmed, and b) as writers, we sometimes have trouble thinking outside the box the we’ve written ourselves into. Moving the filming outside of subway cars? That seems like a really, really simple fix, but it never occured to me.
I think, again, thanks to the Leukemia (what a weird four words to put together), I got the chance to get a lot more input from the group, I got the chance to have Ballard direct the video, and Paul’s camera broke (another good thing disguised as a really bad one?) and he bought Betsy. Just a lot of stuff that all made it better, I think.
So, there you go, cancer, I’ve given you two years of my life and I’m thanking you for making me wait to shoot this video. Remember that, because it probably won’t happen again.
