Todd Levin

I have once again collaborated with the very funny Mike Sacks, Ted Travelstead, and Jason Roeder for another “RADAR 100.” This one was even more fun than the first, and I’m honestly happier with the results. From the October issue of RADAR, here’s “This is Awkward: 100 Ice Breakers to Avoid.”

I’ll also post my “didn’t make the cut” list of ice-breakers later. For now, enjoy the winners; losers come second.

Also, after months of having no way to reach me, I’ve finally fixed the “contact” page to handle all of your most pressing issues. Thanks for alerting me to that fact, Mr. Slauson.

I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to draw your attention to this:

I’m hosting a new episode of TV BOOK CLUB on Monday, September 17th. Hear original pieces written and performed by writers from some of TV’s funniest comedy shows. This show is CONAN vs. LORNE. Guests include:

ANDY BLITZ (“Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” and featured in one of my favorite remote pieces in Late Night history, “Pop Up Problem”)

DAN GOOR (“Late Night with Conan O’Brien”)

EMILY SPIVEY (“Saturday Night Live”)

BRYAN TUCKER (“Saturday Night Live” and this)

CBS/NYC PRESENTS…TODD LEVIN’S TV BOOK CLUB – Monday, September 17th
All shows @ 8:30 (doors @ 8:15)
@ MO PITKIN’S HOUSE OF SATISFACTION
34 Avenue A, Between 2nd and 3rd Streets

Tickets only $6! Available at www.ticketweb.com or at the door.

Here are a couple of things I’ve recently worked on, instead of writing fascinating slice-of-life stories for this world wide website:

I was a correspondent on WNYC’s “Fair Game” last week. It all happened very fast, and it was the first time I’ve ever recorded something live, relatively cold, and while I think I only did an OK job on it, it was a nonetheless thrilling experience. Yes, I just called public radio thrilling. Shut up. You weren’t there, jerk. Anyway, when we have time I’ll tell you more about it. For now, you can hear it right here.

RADAR MAGAZINE’s “Summer of Meh.” Believe it or not, RADAR Magazine did not think this past summer was awesome. I contributed to this group complain-a-thon, with a brief item about The Two Coreys.

If you visit The Morning News today, you can read something new I wrote for them. It’s called “Television: How Novel,” a round-up of selections from some of my favorite television novelizations over the last several decades. There are just a few there, because my word-count was limited.

However, as a tremble.com reader bonus, here’s a novelization that didn’t make the cut. Last season, HBO Publishing (their tag line: “They’re not books—they’re HBOOKS”) released a series of short, one-act plays based on their hit show Entourage. The plays are sort of Cliff’s Notes versions of the show, distilling the plot of each episode into a single, essential scene. Here’s one, from the third volume of these published plays, called, “The Phone Call.”

The guys are sitting around their kitchen island, as Drama dishes out portions of his high-protein spirulina scramble.

DRAMA
Bro…

TURTLE
Old!

ERIC
Virgin.

VINCE
(smiling) Guys…

Vince holds up and jangles a set of keys to the new 2008 Mercedes Hovercraft.

ALL
Definitely!

Vince’s iPhone rings. It is Ari.

In a darkened section of the stage, a lone spotlight illuminates Ari, dressed in a Helmut Lang suit, walking on a treadmill. He is squeezing a hand-strengthener with his free hand.

ARI
Have you seen the numbers?

VINCE
Bad?

ARI
Yeah…if this was OPPOSITE DAY! We’re rich, bitch! Meet me at the Malibu Tit-Off in 30 minutes. We’re celebrating, boys!

Blackout. During scene change, we hear the latest hyphy song.

That’s where I’ve earned my first byline in Esquire Magazine. It’s in the August 2007 issue—the one with John Edwards on the cover, that fascist!

It’s a small humor piece based on something I’d previously published in The Morning News, about choosing wine. I co-wrote the Esquire piece with a very funny writer and friend, Mike Sacks. (Mike is the author of one of my favorite McSweeney’s pieces of all time, “Whoops!”)

It was neat to see my name in Esquire. I’m not sure exactly why that sort of thing still makes me really giddy, but it does. And I’m not sure exactly why I’ve been sending photocopies of the article to all my English teachers from high school and college with a Post-It attached that just says, “IN YOUR FACE!” but I have. I’m not even sure how many of those teachers are dead. (Not by my hand, FYI.)

So anyway, yes, page 42. Sitting right there on the right side, like a shy teenage girl. It’s a start.

Do you live in safe driving distance of New York City? If so, you’re welcome. Here’s a show I’m hosting this upcoming Monday, produced by the professional people of CBS/NYC, a NYC comedy lab for CBS-TV. It’s an evening of very funny live readings by very funny writers for some of television’s very funny comedy shows. You may have seen it as oh, I don’t know, TimeOut magazine’s comedy PICK OF THE DAY for Monday, July 16th. Just saying, is all.

Here are the details:

CBS/NYC presents TODD LEVIN’S TV BOOK CLUB
Featuring readings by these gifted and employed TV comedy writers:
Charlie Grandy & Colin Jost (“Saturday Night Live”)
Tami Sagher (“30 Rock”, “MadTV”)
Rob Kutner (“The Daily Show”)

Monday, July 16 @ 8:30pm
Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction – 34 Avenue A (b/w 2nd and 3rd Streets)
Tickets: $6 (for more information or to purchase advance tickets, please go here)

Fresh Yarn is a self-attributed online salon for personal essays, and it’s very good. Most of the contributors are LA-based TV writers, actors and humorists – aliens to me, mostly. For the latest installment, they were nice enough to publish a piece of mine, “My Racist Aunt,” which previously appeared in a rougher, less nuanced form on this very site. (It was a prelude to another piece first published here, then elsewhere – “The United States According to My Racist Aunt.”)

It is nice to be included alongside the likes of Sarah Thyre, who was one of the first people in New York to nurture my sophormoric side by publishing some of my absolute dumbest writing in her zine, Thyrezine. (my first contribution, titled, “How to Fuck Your Pets”, included a diagram of a horsefly with a thought bubble above its head, containing the words “FRIG MY FUCKHOLE.” class.)

It is also nice that I’ve finally realized a long-standing dream of mine, to be published in the same space as Taylor Negron.

I received a reprint permissions letter today from Glamour UK, which reminded me that I have a small (300 words or so) piece in the February 2004 issue of Glamour. It’s there if you want to read, as part of a multi-author feature titled, “What he’s thinking when…”

My piece is about women who cry. I’d originally been assigned a second piece, about women who make the first move, but an editor called several weeks after I handed it in and she had some bad news. My “first move” piece had been cut from the feature. The magazine liked it but it seems the same list of story assignments were circulated among the male super-huge-celebrity crowd, giving them the option to contribute to the article. And, unfortunately, Usher was very adamant about submitting a piece on women who make the first move. Naturally, I was sad to see my contribution cut in half (though, in fair play, i was paid for both pieces), but I have to say it’s really just an honor to be bumped by Usher. I’ve always loved his writing. And his contribution to Glamour – the story of how he met Chili from TLC – finally answers the question millions of R&B listeners have pondered, and many poets have interpreted over the centuries. Apparently, Chili made the first move.

[i had considered posting my unpublished story here, but i’m not sure of the legal complications that could potentially ensue, and i would hate to be sued by Glamour or the house of Usher.]