Wyclef, Preacher's Son, Ichiban

This morning I woke up a few times. The party last night was a real treasure, and I thank McGovern and the lovely Ms. Alex for their hosting. Old friends, new ones, and the promise of a few new fans for tonight's Ryan James Ponies comedy show (featuring me AND FREE BEER! Tonight at 9:30 PM at the West Side Comedy Theater in Santa Monica on the 3rd Street Promenade) made it a vastly unforgettable evening. But as is often the case with fun parties, especially ones tucked away in the needlessly confusing hills of UCLA, I awoke this morning feeling slightly dehydrated, more than a little groggy, and fully willing to return to bed.
What a mistake.
When I finally leaped out of bed and pulled the ripcord on my Saturday, I saw my phone blinking. There was a text message from Sprint demanding that I pay my overdue phone bill, which as you might imagine is a really unpleasant way to start the morning. I saw that I had a voicemail as well, and assuming it was probably Susie from Sprint I prepared myself for a few minutes of evasive maneuvers and excuses before buckling down and finally handing over my credit card number.
Man was I wrong.

This is the message I received: "Hey, Matt, what's goin' on? My name is Jay. I work with Wyclef. He actually wanted me to hit you up while he was in LA. Gimme a call back at..."

That's right. Wyclef. As in @wyclef. As in Wyclef Jean, international musical superstar and member of the greatest all-time hip-hop collaboration, The Fugees.

I'll allow you a minute to say WTF.

Perhaps I should explain. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Twitter. A few months ago I sent a message to my followers promoting da Clef that read: "Also, I highly recommend you follow @wyclef . If you've ever wanted to see a hip-hop legend misspell many things, this could be for you." Pretty innocuous, barely funny, but kinda true. A few hours later I received the following response from Wyclef: "@Shorester hah lollll lov it!" Not only was it awesome that Wyclef read my @message and responded, he was also kind enough to prove my point by misspelling both LOL and Love at the same time! Thanks Clef!
It was a fun little exchange and I appreciated that a musician I respect so much took the time to respond to me. It was one of those moments that really proved how wonderful and serendipidous Twitter can be sometimes, that it's more than a Facebook knock-off, that it's actually a new technology worth venerating. I didn't think much more about it after the initial shock wore off, but I kept up with Clef's tweets just to see how the dude was doing.
In the past few days Clef tweeted that he was headed to LA and that any "Warriors" (Clef fans) in the area should send him a message with their phone number so he could contact them. On a whim, I sent Clef a message asking him how I could join up. He started following me on Twitter and I DM'd him my digits and thanked him for all the online entertainment so far. Then it was off to the party for an evening of fun. I literally had zero expectations for a response.

And here we are today. After being stunned into shock by the message from Jay, I waited a little bit to cool down and rang him back. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Jay, what's up? You called me earlier..?
Jay: Yeah, you said you were in LA and Wyclef wants to bridge the gab between the fans and the internet.
Me: Yeah, that sounds cool.
Jay: Cool, then I'll see if I can get him on conference call.
(This is where I paused to steel myself. I had no idea I'd be talking to the man directly. After a thirty second pause, Wyclef came on the line.)
Wyclef: What's up, Matt? This is Wyclef. How's it going, my Warrior? (Sic: This may be a little innacurate as I was still dealing with the shock of speaking to him. At first I was so stunned that I was worried I was being tricked by a Wyclef impersonator, but after a few brief moments listening to the lilt and cadence of his voice it was clear that this was the timbre of the man I'd been listening to on albums for years. Needless to say I was amazed.)
Me: Hey, Wyclef! What's up? Whag'wan, my brother? (I am an idiot.)

Wyclef went on to explain that he sees the internet as the future of everything and especially communicating messages on a global scale. He seemed excited about the prospect of being able to interact with his fans in a new way. After briefly telling him how much I appreciated his posts on Twitter that shared his new music and videos, he told me that he would pass me back to Jay but that he would see me tomorrow at the SECRET MEETING LOCATION at ten.

Me: Ten PM?
Wyclef: Ten AM. Warriors never sleep.

He passed me back to Jay. Jay let me know about the secret location (which out of respect for the man's privacy I will not divulge) and told me that Wyclef will be working with the BET Music Awards on a tribute to Michael. Jay and I shared some sorrow for MJ's passing, and since it sounded like Wyclef would be busy working on more important matters I resisted the temptation to invite Wyclef to play an accoustic set before our improv show tonight. (That would've been a much better use of the opening five, right Jeff?)
In any case, the meeting will go down tomorrow. I recommend that if you're interested in becoming more involved with Wyclef's warriors you head to his new fan site: http://wyclef.ning.com/ I'll keep you posted on what happens and if/when I get to meet the man in person. Hopefully he'll be there tomorrow morning, but I'll fully understand if something comes up. He is an international music star after all. In any case, you'll be the first to hear about it. Cheers. (And come see my show tonight! Free beer!)

P.S. If you know anything about Wyclef's secret meeting place, please keep it to yourself. There's no reason to make this a media frenzy when the guy's being so cool about it.

Annie, Are You Okay?

It's no shocker to web-heads who read my stuff that I've been a long-term fan of Achewood. I have a hardcover copy of "The Great Outdoor Fight" sitting on my dresser as I write this. Chris Onstad's web comic is one part graphic novel and two parts psychedelic insanity. I appreciate it for its commitment to character, clever dialog and its undeniably unique art style. Sometimes Achewood transcends its ability to elicit the occasional chuckle, placing its index and middle finger squarely on the pulse of modern pop culture and giving it the kick in the pants it needs. Today isn't one of those days. Rather than mocking the nature of celebrity fandom or throwing dirt on the grave of a much-maligned musician, Onstad uses his digital soapbox to draw reverence and insight toward the fans themselves, giving voice to their concerns through the guise of character.

In addition to his (semi) daily comic strip, Onstad provides his readers with a bevy of additional material for them to injest, including a bunch of character blogs "written" by the lovable animals of Achewood themselves. Yesterday was a rough day for many of us. We lost two major celebrities, bringing the total to three this week, and while their relevance had lessened slightly with age the shock of each demise was startling enough to provide the public with a wake-up call. Human life is something to be treasured, and it doesn't matter how twisted you turn out, whether you began life as a child singing prodigy and morphed into a cake-faced sexual deviant, a running joke and a public pariah. A death is a sad thing, and a small morsel of respect for those passing is a necessity, if not for yourself then for your fellow man. We live in a society, and in some ways we're just as responsible for Michael's condition as he is. The only thing we couldn't take credit for was his incredible talent. It flowed through him like magic and enertained audiences who couldn't even understand his lyrics. There's nothing quite like lightning in a bottle, and while the storms that followed Michael would be his downfall, the magic of that first spark will never be forgotten.

Chris Onstad echoes this sentiment through the eyes of his character Ray in Achewood. Today's "emergency" blog post gives voice to the silence affecting fans worldwide. Should we treasure Michael for who he was or lambast him for what he became? Could any of us have seen this coming, and who's really to blame? The hard questions make it easy to feel stunned to the point of silence. Mitchell Lerner, one of my dear friends and comedy colleagues, and I shared a late-night conversation about Michael that was completely absent of our traditionally offensive humor. Instead we reflected on his character as a man, his talent and his descent into madness. If that's not a sign that something crazy has happened, I don't know what is.

For more thoughts about Michael and some pretty psychotic Fox News style argumentation, I suggest you check out Paul Baumbusch's Facebook page. He and I got into a pretty bad wall-post flame war over the subject. As an objectivist, he considers Michael's unwillingness to play classical music a great slight to society, and therefore a reason why we should feel nothing about his death. Feel free to send him some "love" on my behalf.

Found Art

I want to alert you all to the existence of www.foundmagazine.com if you don't already know about it. I've been tweeting about the greatness of the publication since last night, when I had the distinct honor of seeing their live show at the Largo Theater on La Cienega Blvd. Found is a magazine that serves as a community art project. People world-wide submit letters, notes, photographs, signs and other belongings that they spot rustling in the bushes or blowing down the lane. The purpose of the project is to give these lost letters a new audience, to share their previous privacy with the world and in some small way remind us of our basic humanity.

Davy and his brother have slowly transitioned Found from a fun art project into a full-scale publication, complete with spectacular design, writing and of course the remarkable found letters. If you've ever had the pleasure of getting to see Davy perform live, you'll know he has a very conversational small-town approach to stage presence, in a way only masterered by some of the greatest of stand-up comics. At the after party, I spoke with him briefly about Found and found out that he's even been contacted by some of the people who wrote the letters that he'd discovered. Found changes the names of the letter writers so as to respect people's privacy, but even so, people have a tendency to find out when their stuff is being used without their permission. The surprising thing here is that Found might be one of the few cases where people are too proud to be mad about having their personal papers published. The nature of the project is so interesting, collaborative and down-to-earth that it's hard not to want to be a part of it. That may explain why their most recent book contained numerous celebrity endorsements, and why Seth Rogen and Fiona Apple were both in attendance last night.

Not to change veins too much, but perhaps the greatest moment of last evening (aside from the bevy of beautiful indie rock babes parading through the Largo and the after-party) was the opening act performed by a young man named Brett from West Virginia. Brett, as I assume is the case with many young West Virginians, is a circus freak. From the age of eight, his grandfather- a sideshow grifter by trade- taught Brett to swallow swords, light bulbs and other (supposedly) inedible items. Brett performed for a wide-eyed terrified audience last evening as he swallowed two broadswords, a kris, a screwdriver, a back-scratcher and a 37-inch balloon that he later popped from within his belly. Brett has been traveling the world with the boys from Found for the past few years, and even got to work with the good people at Amsterdam's Boom Chicago (a renowned comedy show that will soon feature my dear friend and comedy compatriot Jessica Lowe). Like Davy, Brett had a real knack for audience interaction in spite of his youth, and even more impressively it turns out that he's a friendly and charming guy in real life. I highly recommend you check out one of his shows if you're in the Venice Beach area, as he'll be performing live with the Freak Show starting next month. The kid's so normal and so talented he almost gives 'freaks' a bad name.

Last but not least, I have to pimp one final act from last night's cavalcade of stars: The incredible Watson Twins, a dynamic duo from Louisville whose soothing indie rock tunes brought solace to my soul both last night and all throughout today's righteous hangover. Not only are the twins very sweet and personable, they're incredibly skilled musicians with a beautiful sound and really great vocals. I bought their latest album Fire Songs last night and I've been listening to it all morning. Tracks like "How Am I To Be" and their cover of "Just Like Heaven" really highlight the minimalist versatility of their act. I dig on smaller groups like The Fiery Furnaces and the White Stripes, because it's cool to see two people stretch to fill the roles usually taken care of by a full band. The Watson Twins nail it dead-on, and I can't wait to catch them again the next time they're around my area.

That about wraps it up for last night's Found spectacular. I'll be posting more in the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled (especially for any scraps of paper that might blow your way). I decided to join the Found street team, and I suggest you do the same!