“It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house”
- Conan O’Brien

By now, most people know all about the drama surrounding Conan O’Brien finally getting the Tonight Show spot and then, more or less, slowly being pushed from the position that he had dreamed about obtaining for so long.  Details and opinions can me mixed but, when it’s all said and done, it doesn’t matter.  The Tonight Show has lost their credibility and Conan has gained even more of it throughout this entire fiasco.  Jay Leno still comes across as your parents friend who tells bad jokes like, “Working hard or hardly working?“, as he took his role back entertaining the elderly with insomnia.

Recently there have been many rumors about what would be 8 foot Irishman’s next move.  The rumor with the biggest hype behind it was that the former talkshow host/comedy writer my be going on a multi-city live tour.  Due to legally binding stipulations in his exit contract with NBC, which would prevent him from appearing in a talk show spot with any other station for months, this would be a great way for O’Brien to sustain his momentum and remain in the public eye in the meantime.  Well, this is now officially much more than a rumor, as tickets for the tour went live this morning.

Being marketed as, “A night of music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence“, the 30 city tour kicks off on April 12th in Eugene, OR and ends on June 14th at the FOX theatre in Atlanta, GA.  Perhaps even more surprising than the tour itself, however,  is the information that it will include a stop at the Bonaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN.  The press release states that the live comedy/music review “will include longtime sidekick Andy Richter and the former Tonight Show band” however, word is that Max Weinberg will not be part of it.

Get your tickets fast, because these spots are bound to disappear quickly.

Here are the tour dates: (more…)

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Back in October, comedians, Nick Kroll and Jon Daly introduced their characters of “Bobby Bottleservice” and “Peter Papparazzo” (aka: “The Ed Hardy Boyz”) to the world via a video short on FunnyorDie.com.  Taking jabs at gaudy, tanning bed glamor boys and playing off the name of the classic, fictional teenage detectives, the video featured the duo trying to solve the case of a stolen belt buckle.  We liked that video and posted it.  Apparently, Funny or Die became aware that we had, because I just received an email from the site asking if we’d be interested in posting the follow up as well.  We were. (more…)

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LSD…  it’s a helluva drug.  Back in the day, I did my share (and, perhaps, the shares of a few others).  Some believe that it has the potential to help turn you into such a super genius, that you appear freakishly insane to anyone else that’s not “on your level“.  Then again, it’s always possible that the reverse is happening and they really are going so ape-shit crazy, that it only leads them to believe that that they have a growing mental superiority.  One thing’s for sure; these chemical roller-coasters have the ability to twist up and whack out a synapse, like eating a parasitic egg-salad-sandwich from the vending machine of an interstellar truck stop bathroom.  The reality is that, even with all of the epiphanies and life lessons that one may obtain during these odysseys, there is really no scientific control for the experimenter/guinea pig and, short of a clone or view into a parallel dimension, no one can ever really know if they would have arrived at those same conclusions without the “aid” of the hallucinogen.  The good part is, since there is no way to make that determination, it doesn’t really matter and there are more detrimental things in the world than examining the differences between arrogance and confidence, exploitation and opportunity, respect and glorification, inspiration and contrivance, hustling and…well, hustling.  Despite the blatant self-aggrandizement implied in his stage name, Sean “Har Mar Superstar” Tillmann seems to have an incredibly firm grasp on these concepts and plenty of others.  Of all the electric realizations that I had, however, there is one specific principle that truly epitomizes Tillmann’s career for me: “Regardless of how clearly, simply, honestly, or directly you express a pure truth, it doesn’t mean that anyone else will, necessarily, hear, believe, or even understand what you are trying to relate to them.” (more…)

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On Sunday night, Sean “Har Mar Superstar” Tillmann and his crew of band-mates rolled into Seattle.  The second to last show of their West Coast tour was held at Chop Suey, and it was the fucking jam.  Before his set, I sat down and conducted an interview with Tillmann, which was filmed with a flip video camera.  Two other past Monster Fresh interviewees/friends were also in attendance at the show: artist, Thea Wolfe and musician, Kimya Dawson.  Although it would have been nice to see a little more movement from some in the hipster Seattle crowd, we still had a full-on R&B dance party throw-down.  Some of this was recorded on the flip cam too.

The next morning I woke up with a message from Thea, who had been messaging  on Facebook with Har Mar bassist, Denver Dalley.  They band finally had a day off and wanted to go to a dance party, before heading up for their last show in Canada the next day.  Thea was set to throw it at her house.  Although the last minute party still went down, and went down well, Tillmann’s crew never made it.  After partying and traveling for 6 straight days, their bodies decided to crash out under them and use the day off for what it was intended for… regeneration.

I still need to go through my footage and decide how I want to edit and present the material.  Until I am able get all that shit together, however, we’d like to tide you over  by presenting you with a recently posted Har Mar Superstar tour video that was filmed on a  flip camera of their own.  In this video, taped on Jan. 22nd,  Tillmann shows of his dance skills and expresses his love for pop-star Hannah Montana by singing along to her hit track, “Party In The USA“, while driving a van up I5 to Portland. (more…)

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If you’re a die hard fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, then you probably already know about the Dick Towel by now.  If you read our November 6th post about the novelty drying devices, then you also know that the Sunny crew actually manufactured the product and constructed an official site to sell and distribute them.  In that post we mentioned that the towel would have made a wonderful Christmas or Hannukah present, but followed it up by asking, “As far as Kwanza?…..TERRIBLE!  Where is all of the dark meat?!”

Well, it looks like the folks at Dick Towel are all ears when it comes to concerns as dire as those regarding racial sensitivity in the mock phallus industry.  Beyond just adding hats and T-Shirts to their line of Dick Towel related merchandise, we’d like to present you with their latest addition……

…………. “THE BLACK DICK TOWEL”!

Finally!  This should please a lot of people, except for this guy of course [poor bastard].

The really good news is, in celebration of their latest wang cloth, the people at Dicktowel.com have offered to provide us with a couple of FREE Dick Towels to give away.  This means that we will be picking 2 winners (one for each color).

HOW To Enter:

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Back in our Oct. 2007 interview with with Charlie Day, I asked the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star/executive producer about marketing.  More specifically, I inquired about if there had been any show-related merchandising ideas that had been thrown around “Anything along the lines of ‘It’s Always Sunny’ in-soles or bondage gear?“  Now, it looks like the cleverly absurd merchandising possibilities for the show creators are finally beginning to hit their stride.

Last night’s episode of the FX program revolved around the concept of the gang trying to capitalize off of a merchandising convention that was coming to town.  Various product concepts were presented by the crew, including a shotgun that blasts liquor, but in the long run, the only successful idea that garnered any interest from investros was Charlie’s “Kitten Mittens“.  In the real world, however, another one of these ideas has actually been put into production and can be purchased by you through a website specially created for that purpose.  That’s right, DICKTOWEL.com actually exists.

Watch the video:

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