nonpretentious

Dear Graduate Student: An Exchange

Dear Grad Student,

First, I’d like to apologize for my behavior in our last class before Spring Break.  I know you’re just doing your job when you do stuff like assign a term paper just before we all go on vacation, so standing on my chair and making the “suck it” sign was not really as funny as it was supposed to be, especially since I hadn’t noticed that you no longer had your back to me.

I realize we may have not gotten off to a great start on the first day of classes, when I careened off the lecture hall doorway and face planted in front of your desk.  There was a lot more blood and vomit then I like to shed on a first day. My frat brother Harpo told me, and I don’t recall this, mind you, but apparently I went on a six minute diatribe, churning with vulgarities and the occasional bizarre sexual reference, on my complete lack of respect for TA’s in general.

My point is, these days are behind us, and I believe you and I may be able to forge a fresh, dare I say, mutually respectful TA-student relationship.

Continue reading…

A Horribly Bitter Description of Film School from Someone Who’s Been There

“Film school?”  Yeah, I just came from there.

Let me tell you a little bit about film school, you basement-dwelling, Netflix-hawking, Tyler Durdens, out there; challenging your friends to movie trivia contests and answering their “What was that guy from?” inquiries with a sick sense of glee.

Get there.  Get there as soon as possible.  For the first time, you’ll be home.  You’ll bask in the warm sensation of familiarity as you are finally with others like you and you’ll get a chill of thrilling adrenaline when the full workload is bestowed upon you.

Yes.  It’s like pissing your pants.  Except this time, the entire auditorium isn’t laughing at you.  They’re looking on sympathetically, fists in the air:  “Been there, dude.  Power through.  Power through.”

Continue reading…

Dear Mila,

I guess instead of penpal they should call it pen-yourself. Ha! You know, because I’m writing to myself. But that’s not entirely true either. I’m writing to you, you being my ideal imagined audience. And who is reading it in actuality is 50% a mystery to me. Which is kind of exciting, but mostly predictable. And predictability is something we seem to mostly underestimate, or ignore completely. I am more and more convinced that much of my life is completely predictable. Pushing the obvious aside, like that I will set my alarm for 8:30am tomorrow but won’t wake up till around 11am, eat a bowl of oatmeal while watching something I’ve already seen on HBO. Continue reading…

Dear Mila,

I must tell you, this isn’t going exactly how I imagined it. I really thought that by this time I would have received a response from you. But as I reflect upon it now, that’s completely ridiculous. You’re Mila Kunis! I’m some anonymous dude on the Internets. Ha! There’s so many crazies out there, it would be easy for you to just lump me in with them and never have to think about me again. So, I don’t blame you, really. Perhaps I should tell you a little bit more about myself, you know, to allay your reservations.

My real name is Kiren. Continue reading…

Dear Mila,

Hello. My name is…well, just call me RJ. Kind of like Ray J, but not really. You don’t know me, and actually, I don’t know you. I know of you. Or I know you as the dumb, yet lovable Jackie Burkhart on That ’70s Show; the sassy and sexy Rachel Jansen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall; the dangerous femme fatale, Mona Sax, in Max Payne; the misunderstood angst-ridden Meg Griffin on Family Guy; and most recently, the, uh, Solara in The Book of Eli. I’m sorry, I can’t figure out how to describe your character in that movie. The character wasn’t written well. How would you describe her in no more than two words? Impossible, I tell you.

I should get to the point. Would you like to be my pen pal? I’ve never had a pen pal, and have always wanted one. You Continue reading…

[mix tape] Martin Starr Paints You a Mix

In our world, only two types of people exist:

1) Those who take the “Which Freaks & Geeks Character Are You?” quiz and pray for Bill Haverchuck; and

2) Those who have no idea who Bill Haverchuck is.

Needless to say, we prefer to hang out with the first type.  We also suggest a change of weekend plans for anyone who falls into the second.

Which is to say, we almost peed in our pants when Martin Starr agreed to make a mix tape for us.  (We definitely did a victory dance or two.)

You see, Bill Haverchuck may have sparked our initial respect for Martin but we’re also fans of Adventureland (available on iTunes as of yesterday!  Awesome soundtrack as well!), Knocked Up, and Party Down.  It’s almost like the weirder his characters get, the deeper our admiration grows.

In fact, we’re not sure any other actor could pull off some of the scenes from Party Down and still garner our empathy.  (Insert: Any scene from “Sin Say Shun Awards After Party.”)

He even manages to make us believe that pipe-smoking, Russian literature majors can be nonpretentious.

Right.  So, once Martin agreed to make a mix tape for us, we promised ourselves that we’d refrain from sounding like brown-nosers or stalkers in his introduction.  Obviously, we failed.  Horribly.

On behalf of nonpretentious, we’ll simply point out that it’s not our fault that we respect him as an artist.  Whether his talent comes from nature, nurture, or something else entirely, Martin Starr knows how to entertain.  When we see his name on a project, we’re pretty certain it will be worth our while.  We eagerly await all of his future endeavors, including his writing debut and his art exhibit at the Met.  (Hear that, Directors?  Hear that, Distributors of American Storage?  Hear that, Curators of the Met?)  (Also, no spoilers for Good Dick, it’s at the top of our Netflix queue.)

We know Martin had a full schedule this summer.  (What?  Haven’t you heard of a telescope?)  We’re grateful that he took the time to compile this playlist for us.  We’re even more grateful that his playlist didn’t make us lose all respect for him.

And now a word from the maker of this mixtape:
Continue reading…

3 Things Not To Do at a Tweetup

1.  Pick a fistfight over which application is better: Tweetdeck or Tweetie.

2.  Insist on prefacing your sentences with “@ [name of the person to whom you are speaking].”

3.  Say, “Whoa, you are way cuter in your avatar.”

* Thr33s is a column created by slackers inspired by 5ives. Feel free to post your thr33s.

Teaser Trailer: An Upcoming Post about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, The Guild, Advertising, Web Distribution, & Texas

I’m writing an upcoming post about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and The Guild.

Was wondering if anyone has ever watched them before. If so, I may like to talk to you sometime before Friday.

Here’s the link to the first guild episode too.

No pressure. It’s not homework or anything.

How You Know You're Famous

You get hate mail!

To think, our first piece of hate mail arrived only a few days before our first birthday.  We must be doing something right.

[mix-tape] Pink Bears are Funny

Here at nonpretentious, we love a spot of British comedy (or humour, as they like to misspell it.)  And we also love Mister T (and we pity the fool who doesn’t.)  So we were overjoyed that the Queen’s own Robin Fry, actor, comedian, and voice of Mister T, agreed to make a mix-tape for us.

Mr. Fry hails from the sunny, southern shores of Brighton, England and follows in the long line of British comedians that starts with Benny Hill and ends up somewhere around Mr. Bean. When he’s not writing, acting, search engine optimizing, or parenting, Robin works as a stand-up comedian and regularly performs improv with The Off The Cuff Comedy Collective. He also partakes in “proper acting” every so often. For example, he’s “currently typecast as a nutjob in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.’”  (His words.)  A relatively unknown fact about Robin is that he writes a mean title attribute, a skill any computer geek can appreciate.

Most importantly, Robin Fry, is also a founding member of the Pink Bear Club. (Er, most importantly, unless you are one of his kids….)

What is the Pink Bear Club?

According to Robin, the Pink Bear Club “[does] interactive multimedia comedy shows, which may sound poncey but they’re really bloody funny actually.” He gets points in my book for using the word “poncey,” but let me translate for those of us who celebrate Independence Day. The Pink Bear Club is a group of comedians who can’t get enough of the cozy, pink nest. (I get points for double entendre.) They make funny movies and like spaghetti westerns and are gearing up for Bicycle Day. (Gearing up for Bicycle Day?  Pun!)

Robin’s nonpretentious mix goes from grime to Elvis to old-school hip-hop and could very well touch off another round of Mods v. Rockers if played loudly enough. And if that’s not enough to get you to listen, maybe you should consider the repercussions of angering (the voice of) Mr. T.

We love it.  Click to read the liner notes penned by the Pink Bear himself. Continue reading…