Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed the Behind the Scenes spectacular that was The Setup Show last week. That was a frantic night of panicked hard work on my end, but I watched back the episode and feel like it really did accurately reflect what it’s like in the studio before TCGS gets going on any given week. I hope people had fun watching!
Important Announcement: At the end of last week’s episode, Bill Florio of the LLC announced that we would be doing a show called “18th Century American Gladiators”. I went on Twitter and said it would be this week’s show. We sat down and talked about it and decided we want to take the time to get that VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC completely RIGHT. So we are pushing 18th Century American Gladiators back until next week.
This week what we’ll ACTUALLY be doing is a show I’m very very excited about. It’s called SUM YOURSELF UP IN ONE SENTENCE and here’s how it works:
- Everyone who is a part of the community of our show is invited to participate in this week’s show. The goal is to let us know your entire deal – you get one sentence to do so.
Callers can call in at 212-757-1393. Remember though, you only get one sentence. Maybe we’ll get calls where people say stuff as simple as “I’m a liar”, and then they hang up the phone. Maybe they’ll say stuff like “I’m a pothead and I love it” or “I’m 50 years old and I’m trying to have fun now to make up for lost time.” Whatever it is, it should be an honest effort to sum up the entirety of yourself in one simple sentence. Because we may get a lot of people who want to reveal some personal stuff about themselves, do feel free to call up and keep your identity anonymous this week. We are going to need a ton of phone calls, so don’t be shy.
The only other thing callers can do is ask the Human Fish a question, but even then, if there are too many Fish questions and not enough one sentence sum ups, we will choose to limit those.
We will also have a mic set up in studio, so any of our studio audience members can sum themselves up in one sentence as well. We’ll periodically cut away from the phones to give our audience a chance to get in on this – people will line up at the mic and have the chance to look straight into the camera so they can sum themselves up in one sentence.
And obviously, I hope that our twitter response this week involves a lot of people summing themselves up in 140 characters or less.
This should be a trippy, interesting night. I’m sure we’ll get a lot of funny stuff, vague stuff, intriguing stuff, sad stuff – I want this show to be a clearing house for all of that! I just really believe that TCGS has built into a really strong community – there are people from all walks of life and all different countries finding this show. There aren’t millions of us, but the community we have is strong and dedicated and ready to be honest and go for it at any given time. This show topic is designed to embrace that, utilize that, and further that.
Sometimes I think TCGS is a new version of the old regional TV I grew up with – an era when people in certain metropolitan areas on certain cable systems could latch onto some show they knew the majority of the world would never find, but they loved it because it was theirs. (Almost all of those shows were low budget and sort of lovably shitty as well, in a way that I am really proud of with TCGS too.) Only for us, with the internet being what it is, the regional aspect of that culture no longer relates to physical location – it relates to a mindset, a state of being, the way that viewers of our show view themselves. We love doing our show and we love our callers, emailers, tweeters, etc – and I think all of us on the show know that the people connecting with us are like minded in some way. On our end up on the panel, it’s really and truly intriguing to hear from all you guys and to know there are like-minded souls out there!
This week is one where we all come together and find out who exactly is out there choosing to be a part of that community, one sentence at a time.
Ok, that was an unexpected semi-pretentious but totally heartfelt rant about this week’s show. As you can see, I’m psyched for this one. Call in at 212-757-1393 – we’ll need a ton of callers this week. Tweet at us if you’re too shy to call! And if you want to come live, email [email protected]
On top of this massive experiment of community, we’re welcoming ALIEN FATHER as our musical guest. I always enjoy going online and getting to know the bands our fantastic bookers (Heidi, Kiri, and Zane) bring to the show, and Alien Father is already a band I love. Their tumblr seems to mostly be a merger of music and pornography. Their wikipedia links to an article written about them in a college paper they seem to hate and find inaccurate. They claim they are bringing a large amount of paper maiche props to the show with them. And on top of all of that, their music is aggressive, fun, dark, and you can dance to it. This is the type of shit that can only come out of New Jersey, and I love it. Can’t wait to throw down with these boys.
AND STUDIO AUDIENCE – LET’S STOP WITH THE STANDING AROUND AND TALKING IN THE BACKGROUND WHILE OUR GUESTS PLAY. I’M CALLING YOU OUT. THE DANCING ON OUR SHOW HAS SLACKED AS MORE AND MORE PEOPLE SHOW UP AT THE STUDIO. FUCK THAT. LET’S COME CORRECT THIS WEEK. I REPEAT – I’M CALLING YOU OUT. MORE DANCING, LESS SOCIAL AWKWARDNESS, MORE FUN, LESS NERVOUSNESS. DANCE TO SHOW YOU DON’T GIVE A FUCK THAT WE’RE ALL A BUNCH OF AWKWARD LOSERS WHO ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH DANCING. MY FAVORITE STUDIO AUDIENCE MEMBERS ARE THE ONES WHO DANCE, AND A LOT OF THOSE ARE OUR OLD SCHOOL OG AUDIENCE ATTENDEES. GET ON THIS SHIT! COME CORRECT OR DON’T COME!
And once again, next week for sure, 18th Century American Gladiators. Believe that.
