Selling out to the Mad Man?

    I want to open up my own ad agency. Well wait, maybe I should start a little before that. I, like most people in the Americas, love watching TV. Don't get me wrong, I don't sit in front of the TV all day watching cable, I don't even have cable. I watch shows on DVD(or sometimes online). There are a few that I have become obsessed with, such as Breaking Bad, Children's Hospital, and most recently, Mad Men. Now, I had watched a few episodes before but didn't fully get into it... but I just finished season one, and I am fully into it.

    On top of making me want to start smoking cigarettes, it has done a few other things for me: mainly making me to want to have sex, wear a suit, and open up my own ad agency. I have decided to give up on my current goals of writing, so that I can be the next Donny Drapes(as we in the business like to call him). I have a few business savvy friends with sales experience, we just need to get the companies coming to us. So I am going to use this as a forum to show how good an ad person I am, and pitch some ideas to companies that I think could use some direction.

     Verizon I hope can admit to themselves that all of their ads suck. They need a hot, powerful new spokesperson instead of that stupid "hear me now?" guy, who doesn't even say that anymore. He just creepily stares now, its really bad for business. I think someone who was well known a bit ago, but hasn't been in much lately could be the spokesperson. Perfect candidate: Ghost Billy Mays. Or maybe non-ghost Edward James Olmos. Someone who can get the point across, and makes you believe that Verizon is for them. Eddie Olmos did a great job making the cast of Battlestar Galactica think they were going to make it to Earth, and would do an equally awesome job making the cast of the world think they were going to get reception anywhere on Earth. And maybe a new catchphrase: Verizon, get your ve-rize-on?

     Portal 2, the video game... you need to reach out more to what would be your target audience. People on some kind of drug. Whether it be intolerable amounts of Mountain Dew contained Caffeine, or intolerable amounts of Marijuana contained THC- Any ads need to have pictures of things that go well to the hazy minded percentage that will play the game. I'm thinking lots of colors, maybe shapes of food items subtly in the picture. Maybe have some mind-blowing line that will make people be like "I need this!". Something like "The Portal 2 your mind and soul". By this point, you would probably need security guards at any store selling the game. I'm sure many people in a drug induced rage(reefer madness or the caffeine crazies?) would trample others, and attack them so they can get to this portal into their mind and soul.

     Dennis Quaid! That's right mother fucker, you can even be saved by my well thought out ad campaigns. I realize that you haven't been in a single good movie since 2000. But at points in your career, you were in some amazing films. We need to highlight this, and then get your old ass to get into a good movie. Perfect movies to bring up in your career: Films such as Traffic, The Parent Trap and Jaws 3. It shows how wide your acting spectrum can be. Now, you never ever want to mention things like Day After Tommorow, Pandorum, or Vantage Point. You need to do something good, one powerful movie. With all the superhero movies coming out, I think you'd be great as one of the bad guys in one of the new ones. Maybe Mr. Freeze in one of the new Batman movies that I'm sure will come after The Dark Knight Rises. This way, you can play on the fact that people hate you (generally) in movies, so they will have a reason for once. Stop being the good guy. Maybe we could release pictures of you dressed up as inevitable super-villains, so you'll already have a leg up. Sabertooth in Xmen: Second Class? I can see the exaggerated sideburns now.

     I hope any potential clients will consider me to write out an ad campaign for them. I will take any client on as long as I don't hate you, therefore Portal 2 is the only eligible client from this article. I can smoke so many cigarettes with you, and I will wear a suit, and I will attempt to seduce you. Those are 3 things I can assure you. That should show you how dedicated I am, the classic Chris McGonagle promise.

Note- Blog name may change as I may or may not change my name for the ad business

    

First!!!!1!!1!

Welcome to my Chris McBlogagle
First things first, let me tell you a little about myself, and why I created this blog:

   My name is Chris Mcgonagle, I am 24 years old, and I recently fell in love with the idea of performing comedy. This has, in a way, been a dream of mine since I watched Comedy Central Stand Up specials/shows all the time as a ~15 year old pothead. I never fully realized that it was an option to attempt this stuff, or maybe I was subconsciously avoiding it for fear of being ridiculed. Either way, 2011 for me has become the year of trying to do things I love.
   Now I know what you are probably thinking: just because you love watching it doesn't mean you are going to be any good at it. Believe me, I know better than anybody that I can be painfully unfunny at times. But I am not completely inexperienced with writing comedy ideas, as many old film projects I was part of as a child can attest to. They were sometimes school projects, sometimes random projects with friends, but there was always a comedy element to all of them.
   That all said, I am completely selfish in my goal of trying to get into the comedy field. I made a realization in the last year, while searching for a career that interested me, that one of the three things that makes me happy is making people laugh, followed closely by music and puppies. Unfortunately, all of these things I love are nearly impossible to make a living at. But (as I'm sure I may regret) I decided I would rather attempt to try something I love than make a guaranteed living. I am 100% doing this to get off on peoples laughter, both figuratively and literally.
   Now, as to what I've been doing to try and take the "aspiring" away from comedian...
   I recently started a podcast called Analysis Inconclusive with Mr. Martin Thresher and Mr. Paul Thresher. We have yet to release an episode, but we have a few fully recorded which just await us to get off our lazy ass-butts and edit. This podcast is almost a variety show of sorts, with some improv type games we play together, some conversational elements, and some written out segments which we work on. This podcast has been great for the writer side of me, as every few weeks we all need to write out some sketches. We meet every week, and we are each responsible for a pretty well-written-out sketch based on our episodes topic. Writing things that I have to show to the Threshers also adds a bit of challenge to it, as I am selfish and want to make them laugh, probably even more-so than the podcast listeners. I also write out a interview segment for each episode, based on the topic. Not anything serious, more like a set of things for us to talk about and answer, and have a little fun with. Since its all questions I have never asked them, the first episode was a bit clunky(more because of my questions than them, ill admit). But after recording only one more interview, and writing out another one we have yet to record, I noticed that I've gotten quite a bit better(Or maybe I should leave that up to the listener to decide...). Now if only I can work on my improv skills for the podcast, I would feel a lot better about myself.
   I also have another podcast in the works, this one much further from completion. I am co-writing this with Dennis Bruno, and it is going to be an entirely scripted podcast. I don't want to get too far into details, but so far we've talked about a 5-15 min comedy narrative, telling an ongoing story. Kind of like an exciting TV show, but entirely audio, with way more dumb jokes, and not coming from your TV. This idea definitely has been testing my creative fluids(in fact, all my bodily fluids),  as I've been working on joke-writing for this a ton lately. This is definitely good though, as I noticed I would always suffer from writers block working on sketch ideas. But since Mr. Bruno and I have set out the basics of the story, I always have something I can pop a few ideas out for.
   The final thing I have been working on, though admittedly not as much as the podcast writing, is some Stand-Up material. So far I only have done one open mic, and it definitely taught me a good amount. Unfortunately, being as broke as your usual aspiring comedian, I haven't been able to go out as much as I have wanted to (Read: Ever! its been a month since that open mic). I had so much fun my first time, despite the crowd of seven people(other comics mostly) I had, and the complete lack of anything other than the mildest of chuckles. I definitely have been trying to work on a more punchline-y style for standup, as I don't feel my timing (or for that matter anything I wrote) was very good. From what I hear it takes Stand Ups a long time to develop their style on stage at first, and that makes me feel a lot better. Also, the fact that I heard crickets chirping for 5 minutes really put everything into perspective... I mean, what's the worst that can happen?
   My first set I did jokes about a shitty car I was driving around in, and my lack of a sex life. I definitely want to stick to the truthful style of comedy, I feel like listening to WTF? with Marc Maron made me realize that. Not that he's one of my hero comics, in fact I haven't seen much standup of his. But I am definitely a fan of WTF? and feel like he's a close friend just from the amount I know about him. I don't actually believe he's a close friend, obviously, but I know more about him than some close friends. And usually in conversations I'm a little too truthful, so I figured that would transfer naturally. The problem is that I tend to write somewhat absurd sketches, but I want to make the stand up real, while still having my style of humor in it. Just need to be more determined I guess!
   Now that I've typed your fucking face off, Ill tell you what I hope to accomplish with this blog. I feel like this might be useful to somebody to hear my thought process, learn from my mistakes I make as a beginning comedy writer/blogger/stand up comic/podcaster, and if I get lucky, learn from the things I do successfully. I may use this Blog as a place to put some quick funny things I come up, and I may use it as a motivational tool to set goals for myself.

This weeks goals:
Solid sketch for Analysis Inconclusive- Longer than last sketch, with more jokes
Meet with Dennis to work on our podcast project
Work on Standup routine- come up with 5 funny minutes(or rework the stuff I have), perform 5 minutes at open mic or 2(Free time permitting, I have another job you know!)
Write article/sketch/something funny unrelated to podcasts or standup (I've been looking at submitting comedy articles, but also just to have a few solid sketches or ideas written out incase I ever need them)

I will update this blog at some point and talk about what I did actually accomplish. Thanks for reading, hope this has been interesting and/or informative to someone.
Chris McGonagle