Wiener Sausage: The Podcast! Episode #2 dives deeper into the Wiener Sausage mysteries

(These are show notes from my short-lived and perhaps ill-fated podcast with Dan Sullivan. May it always at least live on here. Sigh.)

Yes, we made it back for a second episode.

​These things can never be taken for granted. But again, we think we're finding our groove ... with the help of another excellent guest, Sean Felix, who was a star of the 2008 D.C. production of our Wiener Sausage: the Musical!

3:00 - Dan and Paul discuss who the audience for this podcast might be. The decision: it will help listeners escape reality, much like how dingy taverns helped us do so back when we were in our 20s. Also touched upon: does drinking alcohol help or hurt creativity? The science seems to still be out. But one thing is sure, it's a lot harder to howl at the moon without alcohol!

​7:00 - A word from our sponsor, June Weenie's Self Defense Academy, leads us into a special reading of a never-before-heard extra scene from Wiener Sausage: The Musical!, read by Dan, Paul, and guest Sean. Continuing the tradition, as reviewed by the Washington Post, as "tasteless yet popular." Your job as the listener? Relax, and learn.

12:30 - A word from another one of our sponsors: Prana Bridger jeans. The perfect pants for Kevin Costner.

16:00 - Introducing Sean Felix, who played a character whose name neither one of the playwrights seem to remember. We think; however, that it was Professor Dr. Ewing/Uwe Schmock. Sean reveals that he was drifting around in life until the role came about and he found more purpose.

21:30 - Sean describes what Wiener Sausage: The Musical! is all about, in under a minute. And what does the musical have to do with what we're now trying to do with this podcast/radio show? The musical was insane and so were the times, politically and socially. Nothing much has changed, so this podcast may just be very right for the times.

26:45 - Sean is now a teacher with a family in Hyattsville, Maryland. He reads lots of comic books, and among his favorites is Black Hammer, plus a book called Countdown that is great for teaching kids about the Cold War.

​31:45 - The words for the week. "Sometimes it's OK to pull the covers over your head."

Announcing the debut of Wiener Sausage: The Podcast!

(These are show notes from my short-lived and perhaps ill-fated podcast with Dan Sullivan. May it always at least live on here. Sigh.)

Episode #1 Show Notes - "A Trip Down Wiener Lane" 5/19/2017 0 Comments To continue on from my co-host's admirable ramblings in his first blog post at our new site, I've promised to publish the "show notes" - or podcast outline - for each of our shows. What you will find in this show, as we experiment with various recording technologies and ramp up to get these all posted more officially in the iTunes App store, is as follows: Opening: Dan uncovered some old Sprogs music to dress the show (Thanks, even if they didn't know they were going to be revived, to my old bandmates Paula Luxenberg, Gordie Shaw, and Tim Getman). We hope you like the show and the completely unauthorized use of your music. 1:00: Dan notes that "perfect is the enemy of the good." He surmises that waiting until we can make the perfect podcast would mean we would never do it, so we're just going for it, scars and all. Please bear with us as we grow to hopefully get good and entertaining some day. 3:00: We describe how we, as interlopers into the Washington D.C. theater community, produced Wiener Sausage: The Musical! nearly a decade ago. With much help from a fellow named Kenny. 8:00: The news of the day discussed is the increasingly polarized language of Twitterers on both sides of the love Trump and hate Trump divide. Are we becoming a psychotic nation? Discuss. 11:30: Our first-ever guest is Kathleen Sullivan Nelson, star of Wiener Sausage: The Musical! The interview somehow includes a fascinating advertisement for an Audio Technica microphone. But more importantly, Kathleen talks about (in a sort of Where Are They Now?-type segment) the corporate circus-like events she is now helping produce. Not much different, we surmise, from her gig as Jo, the musical comedy's hermaphrodite protagonist. The three also discuss how Wiener Sausage influenced Hamilton. 18:30 Kathleen plows through a version of one of her Wiener spotlight songs, "Not Cash or Check, Baby," despite Dan and Paul talking throughout her impromtu performance. 24:00: In summary, are Dan and Paul crazy, and only interested in talking about themselves and their fancy new microphone? Well, to our credit, they did end up letting Kathleen have the last word. And boy are those words inspiring. Don't miss them! And see you next time.

Yes, We Could Get More Stupid, and Idiocracy Shows Us How

It's believed that Mike Judge's 2006 sci-fi comedy Idiocracy was released in far fewer theaters because of the way companies like Starbucks and Carl's Jr. were portrayed in it.

Fox, the distributor, allegedly didn't like that its advertisers were being treated unkindly. This is probably just one of many reasons to, even now, eight years later, watch the movie, which runs from time to time on cable TV.

I caught it on Comedy Central last night and thought it was hilarious. Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph play an average soldier and a prostitute respectively who get shipped 500 years into the future in a military experiment gone awry.

Once there, they encounter an America that has seen its gene pool deteriorate to the point where nobody is literate and people sit on their toilet loungers watching TV shows that make today's reality television look like Lawrence of Arabia.

Someone could easily say Idiocracy is, like what the Washington Post called the musical comedy I wrote with Dan Sullivan called Wiener Sausage: The Musical!, "tasteless and popular." But you can't even really say that. Sure, it's tasteless, but not many people saw it. Over the years, it has built a cult following and is becoming relatively more popular.

But if you're a fan of other Judge offerings, like Beavis and Butt-Head, Office Space, and Extract, go quickly to your DVR to schedule Idiocracy.

**** out of ***** stars

Wiener Sausage's Website Gets the Fat Trimmed

Thanks to my co-playwright, Dan Sullivan, the Wiener Sausage: The Musical! website has been revised. Although there was more there before, this nicely trims some of the excess fat.

We hope to add more original comedy bits through the introduction of a blog on the site, as well as more video, photos, and music, so check back often.

As the site says, The Wiener will, um, rise again!!!

Remington the Christmas Mouse Offers Promising Holiday Tale from D.C. Author

Nothing surprises me anymore with D.C.'s renaissance man Dan Sullivan. That may be because I spent 5 years writing Wiener Sausage: The Musical! with him.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be pleasantly surprised. His latest work takes a detour from his stop-and-start blog, his non-profit leadership, his masterful on-stage storytelling, and this past weekend's zany turn at Chief Ike's Mambo Room in Adams Morgan as the world's leading "vajazzler" (don't ask).

It's a children's holiday book called Remington the Christmas Mouse. This story, much like Wiener Sausage (some might say), is a little raw but has a lot of promise.

The premise is creative: The star has fallen off the top of the Green Family's Christmas tree and without it being set properly in place to rise up the chimney and into the sky to light the way to the Green's house for Santa, the family will have to make due without a Christmas.

Enter Remington, an ornament who lives near the bottom of the tree. He realizes the star needs to make it back to the top of the tree but he also knows that the tree's hierarchical cliques of ornaments (the best and prettiest ones get to have all the fun at the top) will make this a treacherous and near impossible journey. He recruits a couple of other bottom-of-the-tree outcasts, a bear and a clock, who help him navigate upwards.

The story is great and captivating. My recommendation, however, is that Remington would work better as a shorter children's book with lots more illustration from Kate Sullivan Nelson. Also, in the Amazon Kindle version I read, there were a dozen or so errors (where words were misspelled or misplaced), so that should be cleaned up. Finally, I'm not sure all the talk of Remington and his pals clearly being inferior because they are not as good-looking as the top-of-the-tree dwellers works for a children's book, where inclusivity and diversity are qualities worth reinforcing for young children. I would say there could be a better (and perhaps even funnier) way to highlight the social differences of the various ornaments.

A lot of promise from Mr. Sullivan is displayed in this book, and "children's storyteller" is clearly yet another side of of this artist that is well worth exploring further.

**** out of ***** stars

Sacha Baron Cohen is a One-Man Riot in The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen has a winning formula in place. He doesn't give us too much, introducing only one new character to us every few years. But when he does release a character, what a doozy it is always proves to be.

The Dictator introduces Crazy Character #4 to the world. I love Ali G, Borat, and Bruno. And I can't wait to see Baron Cohen in 2014 as Freddie Mercury in Mercury. This current role adds another layer to the most politically incorrect actor of our time.

The film is dedicated to Kim Jong Il. Every single race is skewered and roasted. Women and food co-op types are ruthlessly ridiculed. The Dictator pours urine on an Israeli diplomat.

But yet a lot of what makes Sasha Cohen brilliant is that he injects bits that are so poignant and profound, so true, and so shockingly deep and moving into the mix of the underarm and goat-sex jokes. His final speech in New York, where much of the action takes place, is one of the most biting indictments of American democracy that I have ever seen.

If you can get past the crudity and amazing tastelessness of it all (kind of reminds me of Wiener Sausage: The Musical! quite a bit. Several of Baron Cohen's lines and jokes are eerily similar to some in the musical comedy I wrote with Dan Sullivan), you will be richly rewarded with an amazing time at the movies.

****1/2 out of *****

A Bright New Boise Begins An Apocalyptic Season at Woolly Mammoth

Photo by Stan Barouh

The Woolly Mammoth's new season is devoted to plays about the apocalypse. As readers of this blog know, I'm a big fan of "end days" stories, so I'm happy to be a season-ticket holder right about now.

The first offering is A Bright New Boise, which takes place mostly in a Wal-Mart-like break room at a retail store in Boise named Hobby Lobby. Will, a former member of an evangelical, cult-like church is escaping his dark past by taking a job there.

His real motive is to reconnect with his long-abandoned son, who also works at the store. But, hard as he tries to build a new life and fix his past mistakes, Will finds it hard to break out of his pattern of constantly waiting for that exact moment when the world will end.

Playwright Samuel D. Hunter's story reminds me a little of Wiener Sausage: The Musical!, my own play with writing partner Dan Sullivan. The big-box setting. The philosophical musings on corporations. The misguided characters. The end of the world. These topics are competing in a crowded field these days, so the fact that Hunter and the actors in the Woolly's production do such a great job is testament to the power of this play.

**** out of ***** stars

Blogwatch: Shakespeare Gets a New Representative From the Wilds of the Web

Because there are so many great blogs out there like Pop Culture Lunch Box, this is a regular feature that will give these unheralded journalism enterprises a little love.

My great friend, fellow playwright, excellent comedian, and heroic everyman superhero Dan Sullivan, I'm thrilled to report, has started a blog called Fighting Sullivan (link has expired). This is the perfect medium for such a kind of person (in the center of the picture). He is brimming with creativity and I fear that, with him now unleashing his wild ramblings upon the world, the Internet is reaching its next stage of awesomeness.

Fear for us all.

All that said, I'm awfully glad he reported on another friend's latest theatrical performance. Tim Getman recently wrapped in a production of Merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare Theater in DC and I missed it. I would normally report on such a production in the form of a review. Dan approaches it differently. This video he posted on his blog is just weird. And I can't stop watching it.

My Wiener Sausage Co-Writer "Comes Out"

My Wiener Sausage: The Musical! co-creator Dan Sullivan made his Woolly Mammoth stage premiere last week in SpeakeasyDC's excellent production of Don't Ask, Do Tell (Stories About Coming Out, Coming Clean, and Just Plain Coming).

It was basically a stand-up, improv show, with 12 individuals telling their own stories of the process of becoming openly gay, lesbian, or trans-gendered.

Dan (in the center on the photo to the right) of course stole the show, with his dry wit and all-around loveable-ness and impossible-to-not-like-ness. He was 19 and working his job as a flagpole-raiser at the U.S. Capitol (a job that entails a complete fabrication by the U.S. government upon clueless patriotic flag-buyers everywhere). His straight, pink-haired buddy Charlie protected Dan's Private Idaho every step of the way from their redneck co-worker Larry, who fumed all summer that someone had left an issue of the Washington Blade in the Capitol break room.

Other standout storytellers in the show included Andrew Korfhage (telling perhaps the dirtiest tale of the night about his education on sex words in sign language and how he was busted using such language by his boss at the non-profit Co-op America), Regie Cabico (a manic poetry slammer who is big in Canada and had some wild times in his college dorm room) and MC and co-director John Kevin Boggs. All the other performers were either funny or at least had compelling stories to share, which was a pretty impressive feat for the production.

**** out of ***** stars