Magic Meathands

Introducing: The You Convention – comedy that’s all about YOU!

Are you sick of those comedy teams that are so full of themselves? Well fret no more! Here comes The You Convention! Not only do we make it funny – we make it all about YOU!

The You Convention is the newest house team at The Improv Space. So new in fact, that the group makes its world debut this Wednesday, October 10 at 8 PM! This is YOUR chance to be a part of hyperbolic history! And it will only cost you $5 FREE DOLLARS!

Now I want you to guess who just happens to be a member of this brand new group. Go on, guess! Huh, the internet doesn’t seem to be as instantaneous as advertised. Oh I’ll just tell you: it’s me! I hope that wasn’t too much of a curve ball for you. But wait it’s not just me (thank god)! I’m thrilled to be starting this group along with Dan Adams, Hunter M. Altman, Brian Cooperman, Robin Higgins, Andre Radojcich, and Mark Royer! Great improvisers, all. And of course, we wouldn’t even exist as a group without Adam Macy and the rest of the fine and funny folks at The Improv Space. So I hope you’ll come out to see us this Wednesday so we can make YOU laugh!

But in the off-chance you can’t make a Wednesday night show, I’ll be performing more YOU-focused improv comedy this Saturday night with my other group the Magic Meathands! We’ll be joined by the improvisers Barney Five. Check out our Facebook event for more details.

Going Beyond the Blurb to Navigate Comic-Con

Poor CoreyBlake.com. Neglected for so long. I’ve been busy bringing in an awesomely eclectic line-up of columnists at The Comics Observer, in addition to my shows with the Magic Meathands, an improv comedy troupe (show this Saturday!).

And the comic-y goodness doesn’t stop because this weekend it’s Comic-Con: the biggest comics event in North America! My friend Cindy Marie Jenkins is always interested in how different industries reach their audiences, as well as interactive entertainment and media, so she decided to tap me for a special Navigating the Arts interview about Comic-Con for her innovative Beyond the Blurb live interview series. That will happen this Wednesday night at 8:30 PM Pacific time. You should be able to watch live right here.

I’ve also got a special editorial about Comic-Con appearing later this week, so I’ll post about that once it goes live.

Thank you all for your support!

Chris Ellis guides Meathands into our own Fresh Hell

Many thanks to all who came out to our Tag Team show this past Saturday! We had a great night mashing stand-up comics and improv comedy into one big show, and judging by the laughs, you seemed to like it too!

Last month, we sadly said goodbye to our director Bill Johnson but that doesn’t mean the end of the Magic Meathands striving to get better and better. We’re now pulling from a number of experienced improvisers to serve as temporary coaches during our rehearsals.

Our first is Chris Ellis, a longtime member of the The Trans4merz, an improv group playing regularly at Fanatic Salon and originally directed by improvisation innovator Stan Wells. He is also co-creator/director of the hit web-series Fresh Hell, the comedy/tragedy starring Brent Spiner as himself in a world where a mysterious incident has destroyed his career. As you might expect, guest appearances and cameos abound, among them Star Trek: The Next Generation co-star LeVar Burton and The Guild‘s Jeff Lewis and Sandheep Parikh. The series was created with Spiner and writer/fellow Trans4merz Harry Hannigan (According to Jim). Meathands alum Heather Brumley can be seen in the opening credits of each Season 1 episode, and cameos as a Trekkie Nerd in Season 2, now playing on YouTube.

Oh and Chris Ellis is also British. So if you notice an inordinate amount of terrible British accents in our shows, now you know why.

Here’s a Fresh Hell promo:

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for over 3 years, performing over 150 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Caturday: Door Wiping Kitteh Edition

Show tonight! We’ve got a ton of comedic performers – stand-up comics, improvisers – all teaming up for a big night for you!

Meanwhile at The Comics Observer:

 

Saturday’s Tag Team Comedy Show to feature lots of stand-up and improv

Improv group Jump Start first to perform at Heyler’s, our new venue

This Saturday, the Magic Meathands Tag Team Comedy Show will be bursting with more funny people than ever before!

We had a great debut at Heyler’s last Saturday with our Family Friendly Show. Thank you to all who came out to help us celebrate our new home! We’ll be there again this Saturday night with our biggest Tag Team Comedy Show yet! Before you know it, Heyler’s will be known as the biggest comedy spot in LA! Or at least, the biggest on Pico Blvd. Surely somewhere between those two benchmarks.

We’re very happy to have three stand-up comics help us kick off the first Tag Team Comedy Show at Heyler’s:

  • John Vargas made his debut at The Comedy Store and has been performing regularly at comedy clubs in and around LA.
  • Vance Sanders is a Groundlings graduate who works the local comedy club circuit and is the host for the Scoomies, the award show celebrating stand-up comedy in LA.
  • Pat Reilly is another regular of the LA comedy club scene, which helps him study sociology at UCLA.
  • Ceci Noire came from Haiti to live the movie star lifestyle, and has unlocked the secrets of the universe.

A trio of comedians should be enough to pass the legal requirements of a comedy show, but that wasn’t enough for us! We’ve also got the improv group Distant Relatives! They perform every Friday night at The Improv Space, and now we’ve got them! All they need is one suggestion from the audience, and they turn it into a fully improvised long form show. The group includes former Meathand Eric Chad Ho, as well as Jason King, Tim Limbrick, Samir Forghani, and Stephen Perlstein.

To finish it all off, it’s the Magic Meathands! Yes, us! We perform a mixture of long form scenarios and short form games to create a lively and energetic show. So we’ll have you laughing one way or another!

See you Saturday at 8 PM!

Heyler’s
10659 West Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064
(one block east of Overland)

Tickets: $7

PARKING: The meters on Pico Blvd. do not need to eat after 6 PM. They’re on a special diet. Yes, that’s right, free street parking on Pico Blvd.! But look closely at the signs if you park on the side streets off Pico.

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for over 3 years, performing over 150 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Caturday: Door Climbing Kitteh Edition

Ten on the Tenth is happening now! Post your 10 Drum Songs here!

I have a show tonight! Improv comedy by two groups, the Magic Meathands (with me!) and Jump Start, at our brand new location, Heyler’s!

Meanwhile, at The Comics Observer:

Also, listen to my second appearance on the Part-Time Fanboy podcast, where we review The Avengers movie. I show up about halfway through.

Bringing Improv Comedy to The Heyler Space

This Saturday night, the Magic Meathands will debut at our new home, The Heyler Space! Our popular Family Friendly Show with Jump Start Comedy Improv will break in the new performance venue on Saturday, May 12 at 8 PM. Tickets are still only $7 for adults and $3 for children.

Located on Pico Blvd. only one block east of the Westside Pavilion in West Los Angeles, Heyler is owned by Heyler Realty, one of the community’s oldest local businesses. They just recently moved to this great new location and with their interest in giving back to the community, we knew they’d be a great fit for us and our community outreach. Heyler can be easily accessed from the 10 and 405 freeways.

Straight from their Facebook page, below is a peak at Heyler’s spacious offices, which will be transformed into a fun and comfortable theater this Saturday night! Bring your friends and the whole family to witness the start of a new age of madcap mirth-making from the Magic Meathands!

Family Friendly Show featuring improv comedy with the Magic Meathands and Jump Start

Saturday, May 12
8:00 – 10:00 PM
$7 ($3 for kids 12 and under)

10659 West Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064
(map)

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for over 3 years, performing over 150 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Meet a Meathand: Elizabeth Gill

The Magic Meathands are full of creative, interesting and entertaining people both on and off the stage. That may sound like bragging, but we’re proud of our team, so we thought you should know more about us.

Elizabeth Gill has been a Meathand for a number of years, but when she’s not improvising her butt off, she’s teaching screenwriting at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the John C. Hench School of Animation and Digital Arts, and winning some gold medals in the Senior Olympics for women’s soccer. She’s also a screenwriter (she wrote this episode of My So-Called Life, along with a number of TV movies) and a poet (Blue Woman: Poems and Drawings). And now she’s an author with her newly released audio book Open 24 Hours!

Find out more about Liz and her book in the first of our Meet a Meathand series:

See more of Liz performing with the Meathands by checking out our Show schedule.

Download Open 24 Hours by Elizabeth Gill.

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for over 3 years, performing over 150 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Caturday: Shed Kitteh Edition

Meanwhile, in other corners of the internet this week:

It’s Time for a Sleepcation

Image by Tomaniac (click to buy a sticker)

This week, I’m not having a vacation, I’m not even having a staycation. I’m having a sleepcation!

I was calling it a bedcation at first, but it turns out that fake word already exists and isn’t quite right in this situation. So, sleepcation it is.

As of this past Saturday and until this Sunday, I have 9 days where I’ll be sleeping as much as possible for as long as possible with as much sleep as possible. Because sleep is good. Especially after overdoing it for too long. It’s either sleepcation now or crycation later. You can probably imagine what that entails. Of course, we all can use a good cry now and again, but 9 days straight sounds exhausting.

So, if you need me, my bed and I are going to be getting it on.

And OK, I’m hoping to also edit that video and write that web-series script, two things I’ve been trying to get to for a few months now. You see, as it turns out, I’m not very good at doing nothing. Even when not on vacation, I fill my time up with projects. I hear other people go home after work and watch TV or something. If I want to watch TV, I have to schedule it as a weekly thing and make an event out of it.

So I’m trying to sleep and lounge around and just decompress. So far I can’t say I’ve been terribly successful. While I have slept a lot (I’ve always been real good at that), I’ve also stayed up real late, and during the day I’ve been working on The Comics Observer, done some administrative stuff for the Magic Meathands, and been an obsessive dork about our music library. But I’ve also hung out with Nahleen and Cleo some, watched the Twin Peaks episode 6 (my favorite so far!), and started reading Any Empire by Nate Powell (if you’re a child of the ’80s, read this!). And I’ve kiiinda not been on Facebook a ridiculous amount, although I’m still staring at the computer way too much, which I’m sure isn’t entirely relaxing. But the week has only started. I’ll get this right some day.

Anyway, I can’t believe I just reviewed my own vacation.

How do you do with taking time off? Do you like empty time or do you need to keep just as busy as when you’re not on vacation? Or maybe you’re good at finding a satisfying happy-medium?