WIN a Pair of Tickets to PATTON OSWALT Live DVD Taping in SEATTLE!
CONTEST HAS ENDED!
It came down to the wire again, but the winner has been chosen and contacted [The winning entry was #10]. Thanks again to everyone who entered. For updates and first alerts about future contests, follow us on Facebook. (there should be a little widget to click on the right… over there somewhere———>)
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For many, comedian/writer/actor, Patton Oswalt may be the most identifiable as Spence Olchin, a character that he portrayed on the sitcom The King of Queens from 1998 – 2007. That final year he also took on what was, arguably, his most widely “successful” gig, voicing Remy the Rat in the Disney/Pixar animated film, Ratatouille. Currently, Patton maintains a recurring role on the Showtime original series, United States of Tara. It hasn’t always been the most profitable gig in the world to be a comedian, but Oswalt‘s managed to make a living taking on gigs from comedy writing (Mad TV, Dr. Katz, Human Giant) to memorable television appearances (Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Reno 911!, Flight of the Concords), always shining larger than his bit parts and minor roles might suggest. In 2009, a starring role in the independent drama Big Fan, further solidified his legitimacy in the acting world.
Acting and writing aside, Patton is still, first and foremost, a highly respected standup comedian. Back in 2004, Oswalt put together the Comedians of Comedy tour, along with Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn, and Maria Branford. The alternative comedy tour utilized space in indie rock venues to host their nightly shows, as opposed to the stages of typical comedy clubs. The tour was chronicled in a documentary of the same name, a subsequentl series, and even an opening act at the 2007 Coachella Valley Music Festival. Oswalt has already recorded successful comedy specials for both HBO and Comedy Central in the past and cemented himself as one of the top standup comedians over the last 15 years, but, at this point, Patton doesn’t seem content with completely abandoning the artform that originally brought him to the forefront for an easier route with less substance. He continues to write and he continues to come up with more and more consistent material. To showcase his latest work, the comedy mastermind will be bringing his spot-on perceptions and brilliant social commentaries to Seattle‘s own, Moore Theatre. On Saturday May 14th, two shows will be held at the legendary venue and videotaped for a the comedians new DVD. Thanks to our friends at the Seattle Theatre Group, we are offering one lucky winner a pair of tickets to the event for FREE!
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THE CONTEST / GIVEAWAY:
*One winner will receive a pair of tickets to catch Patton Oswalt’s 9:30pm show at
The Moore Theatre in Seattle on May 14th.
HOW TO ENTER:
Patton will be performing 2 separate shows on the night of May 14th; one at 7 pm and another at 9:30pm. Both will be filmed and the best footage will be used for the final DVD. Due to a high demand, tickets are disappearing like crazy and the 2nd show had to be added. We will be giving away a pair of ticket to the 9:30 performance only! If you are concerned about getting in and/or can only attend the 7pm performance, we urge you to buy tickets immediately through this link.
#1)
The video above about the KFC Famous Bowls (aka: “a failure pile in a sadness bowl“) contains one of Patton’s more well known routines. To enter, all you have to do is give us some detailed insight into something that disgusts you about modern day society.
#2)
Post your answer in the comment section below.
#3)
There is no part 3. That’s all there is to the contest. It’s pretty easy… but you should probably read the fine print.
The Fine Print:
All entries must be received by Saturday April 30th at 11:59 pm to be eligible.
You can enter as many times as you want but, use a valid email so that we can contact you.
Winner’s will be chosen arbitrarily, based on our personal “favorite”, so try to be interesting.
If we are unable to contact the winner in a reasonable amount of time, a new winner will be chosen.
[If you have any intentions to post comments asking us to pick you, or asking when the winner will be announced… how about, just don’t do it? It’s pretty fucking obnoxious and it won’t help your chances.]
I am disgusted how racism, sexism and homophobia are still problems. Why must people concern themselves with where a persons ancestry originates, what they have in their pants and what people do with the stuff they have in their pants. As long as you aren’t a complete dick, you are fine by me.
I agree with Summer 100%! People care far too much about the goings on of others and not enough about themselves or their communities. People can love whomever they like! Who are we to stand in their way?
Please try to keep in mind that this is the comment section for a contest/giveaway to a comedy show. It’s not really a forum for discussions about social injustices. Not to offend anyone, but we want to nip this in the bud before the comments begin building off of each other.
teabagging stories never involve a person in a wheelchair. all that rolling back and forth, along with the delay in directed locomotion, would really help with comedic timing.
Modern society’s politicians and profit-driven media discourage civil discourse, instead fostering and feeding off of the anxiety and fears borne from their antagonist ways. Pundits playing puppeteer, and Facebook is their stage.
I’m disgusted by the fact that I can’t watch a cable news outlet without hearing about a BS fad diet or the newest exploits of the Kardashians. When did Snooki EVER qualify as news? Why do I have to listen to a brainwashed talking head ask “Does this new facial scrub really prevent wrinkles? Up next Tom Nobody speaks with professionals about this new ‘miracle cream’.” It’s the same crap again and again and again with snippets of relevant news in between. “In this hour we discuss Kim Kardashian’s newest luxury product, abject horror in 3rd world nations, and why this puppy and goat in Minnesota have become bestest schnuggle buddies! Back to you Tom.”
All the masses of people loving the shit out of Monster Fresh. I’m too busy feverishly masturbating to Flos’ Progressive commercials to look at some POP culture website, unless of course you have free Patton Oswalt tickets.
Saw Patton in Vancouver over Easter weekend!! His new set is unbelievably funny, couldn’t stop laughing the whole time! And all I could think of the next morning in church was rape-goblins :D
what disgusts me about modern day society is WASHING YOUR DAMN HANDS AFTER YOU PEE. it makes no sense!!! my wiener is completely sterile all day, and just to make sure i keep it away from the environment behind two layers of protective clothing. i don’t have chronic swass, so it is clean as a whistle. if anything you should wash your penis off after you touch it with your nasty hands. not the other way around.
Movie Theatres and Modern Society: An Essay on Stupid Crap
For the most part, the modern movie theater experience is a macabre gauntlet of physical discomfort, grossness, and trying not to punch faces really hard. What was once a fun way to spend a few hours on a Friday night has now become a voluntary sacrifice of cash and dignity, all for the privilege of letting some 14-year-old jerk-off kick your seat to the tune of his iPhone’s ringtone.
To clarify, I’m referring to the garden variety “cineplex” experience – not “art house” theatres showing Lars von Trier’s latest flick with Mila Jovovich getting molested by a guy in a dog mask or something. Let’s also exclude the screening of “event” pictures – that is, anything with folks camping out in Hobbit gear or Matrix chaps or pirate codpieces for months before the first 2am preview screening. Nerdtastic as those can be, everyone there plays nice and I’m usually too pre-funked to notice what the fuck is going on anyway. And lastly, ignore (if you can) the spate of no-brain reboots, retreads, and romcoms that clutter screens nationwide. To paraphrase Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, to make fun of them to would, in effect, pooping on poop.
That said, here are the three main things that make we want to kill with my angry, ready hands:
The Commercials Before the Previews
As invasive as airport security screenings, pre-preview commercials take advantage of you at your most captive and vulnerable — and, like those screenings, you can’t ignore them by closing your eyes and pretending nothing’s happening. (Of course, you could just come after the ads, but then you’d be the douche who comes late and begs for an empty seat in a dark theatre, and you don’t want to be that douche.)
That’s not counting the “slide show” that precedes the commercials. With its loop of crappy movie trivia, half-assed “word games” (I use “word” and “games” loosely) and “inspirational celebrity quotes”, you kind of wonder if its only purpose is to make you glad for those commercials to start. (Seriously, though, I always welcome any advice Kate Hudson has on perfecting one’s craft.)
Back to the commercials. What pisses me off is how *good* a lot of them are, in a manner of speaking. Sure, many are still crass and loud and pandering, but the folks who make them are getting more savvy, for better or worse. (Well, for worse.) At first, advertisers would show ads that pretty much looked like they were ripped from your TV. Once crowds started complaining, they got (a little) hip(per) to the idea of making them seem less like a commercial and more like a “promotional entertainment experience” or some bullshit like that.
Now they resemble short films or sometimes even a preview for a fake film. The “best” ones are just clever enough to wring a grudging chuckle from me. Which makes me a feel like a dirty, dirty whore. I don’t know what‘s more disgusting: that those ads are here to stay, or that I kind of think those Fandango paper bag puppets are slightly amusing. Please don’t judge me.
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The Pop and the Popcorn
Really, anything at the snack bar is nasty. Everything’s overpriced beyond reason — because, not surprisingly, the concessions are where the big money is in the movie business. Pop and popcorn come in ridonkulous portions and create a perfect cycle of mindless consumption: The more salty popcorn you stuff in your face, the more sody-pop you’re gonna guzzle down. These two also conspire to create a thin, irremovable sheen of crud on the floor of all theatres that science has yet to figure out how to dissolve.
Grosser still his knowing how they’re prepared. All that tasty Coke you drink? It sits in oozy syrup form in a polyethylene bag inside a cardboard box, connected to the fountain by several feet of tubing. That’s right: it’s a reverse colostomy bag of yum that’s a pleasure to hook up and a bigger pleasure to maintain. Worse yet is the popcorn. There’s no hot air popping action going on here; it’s cooked using a mixture of heated seasoning oil. This oil comes in small, metal drums you open with a screwdriver — and by “oil”, I mean congealed orange death. Crack the lid on one of those babies and you’ve got what looks something out of Tyler Durden’s soap factory. A sharp metal filament is wrapped around the drum to melt the orange glop; when it’s soupy enough, a pump on top of the drum siphons it up and sprays it into the popping chamber. Would you like extra butter with that?
I get it: this is the most efficient way anyone could think of to get it out there. But I‘m willing to pay a little extra if someone can invent a, you know, less-horrifying option. (What’s that? I shouldn’t buy any of that crap in the first place? That’s hilarious.)
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Loud Dipshits, and the Manager Who (Won’t) Deal With Them
The fact that movies are often ruined by talkers or noisy folks isn’t news. What’s breathtaking, really, is the wide spectrum of the types of assholes who think they’re in their den, swaddled in a Snuggie. The shame of it is that many folks are too polite to tell those other folks to shut up — mainly because we’re afraid we’ll get the shit kicked out of us. What’s the cause of that? It’s a little something called I Heard About This One Time Where A Guy Told Another Guy To Shut Up and He Got the Shit Kicked Out Of Him. Perhaps you’ve heard of it or something like it.
And let’s not kid ourselves: going and asking the manager to deal with problem moviegoers is, at best, a short-term solution. They might shut up for a few minutes, but if they’re real assholes, they’ll keep at it again (like they do.) Your only hope is that they’ll get thrown out, but they’d have to, I don’t know, kick the shit out of someone to warrant that level of intervention.
The problem extends beyond the theatre, of course: if they’re loud dipshits in the audience, they’re loud dipshits at home and in restaurants and online. Society’s just gotten better at churning out loud dipshits in greater quantities over the years (see the film “Idiocracy” for an elaboration of this concept). Ultimately, I can’t blame the theatre staff for not trying harder to shut idiots like that up; I just wish they had the authority to implement some swift taser justice now and then. Or maybe install trapdoor seats. Yeah. Trapdoor seats.
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To enjoy the “theatrical” experience without these distractions, we’ve now got home theatre set-ups with surround-sound speakers, 120-inch flat screen hi-def TVs and Blu-Ray players. Between streaming movie services and TV shows that are consistently good, it makes staying in a more attractive (and cheaper) proposition. And yet…
What disgusts me is how that communal experience of watching a movie in a theatre is being ruined by people who forget it’s supposed to be communal. Or, at the very least, forget they’re not the only ones there. Of course, there’s nothing making me go and endure all that the modern movie experience has to offer. I’ve resorted to picking “low risk” movie times — late in the run, latest showing on a Monday or Tuesday night — just to minimize the bullshit I have to deal with. Nevertheless, it’s depressing that less and less people are able to just, I don’t know, shut up and watch a damn movie for a few hours. And yes, I usually end up with a small Sprite and popcorn. Which I finish before the final preview is over.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got Bridezillas DVR’ed and some Pizza Hut dunker strips on the way.*
*Note: I don’t.
A three hour tour? A three hour tour?!?
Hey, here’s some offensive shit that no one ever talks about: “Drinking the Kool-Aid!” Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, “Drinking the [Motherfucking] Kool-Aid!” I know it’s fun for you to rattle off this phrase when you tell your happy-hour friends about the promotion you just got at the sales job that last week you couldn’t stand but this week you think isn’t half bad ’cause as soon as that next pay period rolls around you’ll be raking in a super sweet extra forty-five cents an hour, but keep in mind that while you’re trying to make an oh so innocent joke about how you’ve accepted your pathetic, miserable cubical fate and charm us with a so-called “cute” reference to the childhoods we wasted watching tv ads where a sweaty anthropomorphic pitcher of C&H sugar and red dye #5 crashed through living room walls of nice suburban homes, terrified well-to-do families and wreaked tens of thousands of dollars of collateral damage just he could Barry White an “Oh yeeeeeeah” and lead us all on the road toward Crest Whitestrips and adult-onset diabetes, there were 918 poor souls who lost their motherfucking lives in the middle of the goddamn jungle so you could make a shitty joke!!! That’s right, a whole SHITLOAD of people died in Jonestown back in 1978, before any of you assholes were even born. These 918 poor vulnerable bastards were just some good-natured souls whose gracious hearts were torn apart and taken advantage of by a piece shit in Roy Orbison shades who dragged them into the middle of godforsaken nowhere (Guyana?!? Seriously, where the fuck is that? You couldn’t even find it if I spotted you the continent). He made them dig trenches and give him foot massages and shoot him up with dope while they ate rotten bananas and lemurs. Every chance they could they snuck a glance at a road they only wished was unpaved, thinking that maybe if by some miracle they could escape and find some place that wasn’t a two-shack corrugated metal shantytown that didn’t have telegraphs or running water, that they could get back to the good ol’ USA to all of their estranged wives and children and leave these memories of this dysentery and filth behind. These poor fuckers were the same poor fuckers at your apartment building and your family reunions. They were your cousins and grandmothers, and they lost their families, futures, and entire life savings and here you are trivializing their plight as their bloated corpses lay in mass graves all because you want to justify your new place in the corporate world. Fuck you, you insensitive ignorant pricks.
And by the way…that cyanide? It was mixed with fucking FLAV-R-AID!!!
Cheese. More specifically, the kind that is dispensed by a pump.
Dog shit on my front yard, dogs everywhere, shitting, and me stepping in steaming piles. Shit, everywhere.
Fin.
What disgusts me about modern society is the people who think their thoughts are so modern and important that they feel the need to post it in some forum trying to get something for nothing while there are children in Africa who have nothing but 8 gigabyte ipods with which to play their mp3’s.