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Sven Wechsler is a standup comic in New York. This is the blog where he posts his observational, stream-of-consciousness ramblings. For video footage and schedule, go to www.SvenWechsler.com

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Holiday Limbo




In limbo between Christmas and New Years. I'm not much obsessed with the holidays, but the effect on my environment makes an awareness of this period inevitable. When you don't drink, you notice drunk people. And when you don't god, you notice god people.

I just returned from Washington D.C., where I visited my brother and sister and family for Christmas. My family used to pay lip service to Hanukah, as we are half and half (my father is a Jew, and my mother a Swede/Lutheran - all atheists). But, Hanukah has lost its footing over the years, and just can't compete with the neon distraction of electrified Pagan Jesus abuse.

My brother has two children, 3-year-old Aaron and 5-year-old Anna. Both of whom run on high octane and require attention at all times. Fortunately I relate to children on a one-on-one basis more readily than adults, so I spent most of the weekend discussing Spongebob and junglegym diplomacy with the two. No existential angst can withstand the genius of "Be the monster, and I'll hide."

We took the inevitable trip into the city to look at the monuments on the mall. The Vietnam, Korean and WWII memorials continue the tradition of turning this place into a glorious cemetery, with Lincoln at one end somberly looking out the cost of "freedom". I'm not completely ironic about that, but I couldn't bring myself to type "freedom" without quotes, as it has been used as a catchphrase and weapon by politicos for so long, the word seems to lost some of its innocence. No matter where you are in this city, you can see the Washington Monument pointing skyward in tribute to Egypt. Between this and the pyramid on the dollar bill, one begins to wonder that the hell the pharos have on us.

Looming in the coming week for me is New Years. Now a year-and-a-half sober, I don't know what to do with this holiday. Going to a "meeting" and listening to the tragic, self-absorbed tales of A.A. is not tempting. Going to a party and watching the everybody actively drink themselves into who they wish they could be without drinking is also not tempting. I'm sure I will make no plans and end up doing something last minute that will involve the latter rather than the former. It's not that hard not to drink. It's just hard to be around people who are drunk without being drunk.


Alright... back soon.



Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Strike!

So, the DeNiro movie thing fell through in the end. I waited on set for 12 hours only to get cut from the scene the second they started filming it. Made about $300 for the trouble. Got a union waiver, but no place in the credits. I talked to an optemetrist whose job it was to put Matt Damon's contact lenses in and take them out every day. This has been her job for 3 months. Another guys job is to be his stand in, when they're setting up camera angles and blocking. He also has been at it for months. At one point we all got champaigne and toasted Matt Damon on his marriage that day at City Hall. This may sound exciting, but honestly the whole thing was really very boring.

The MTA strike is on here in NYC and its just not easy to get anywhere. I'm going to drive into the city tonight if it kills me, because I'm getting cabin fever. I've been on message boards starting arguements and generally making a nusance of myself.

I somehow had hoped this strike would be more exciting, but it's just kind of killed things. Comedy shows are dying left and right, because comics can't get to the shows, and audiences are staying home. The coffee shops in Williamsburg are full. Lots of people trapped.

I really want to climb down into the subways and explore, since they're dead, but there are cops posted in every station, probably to keep people like me at bay. There's a whole world down there. The "Mole People" - vagrants who lived in the tunnels of the city in the 70's, 80's and 90's, have long been flushed out, but I've read that the amount of abandoned space beneath the ground in NYC is enormous. Tunnels that haven't been used since the 1800's. Abandoned subway lines....

I feel like I should comment on the holidays. But, I don't think I should feel that way.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

I get a part in a De Niro movie.



Two days ago, I'm driving around helping this Israeli guy move a T.V. he bought from the Upper East Side to further Upper East Side and, just as we finish lifting this 200 pound T.V. out of my van, my phone rings.

"Hello"
"Hello, is this Sven Wechsler?"
"Yes"
"This is so and so from such and such casting. Would you be available to have a meeting with Robert De Niro on Wednesday about a rold in the movie he's directing?"
"Uhm, has anybody said no to that question yet?"
"No. Nobody has."
"Right, well I'm up for that."
"Great."

Cut to two days later (Today). I show up at a mansion in Yonkers and am directed to holding area with all the extras and other people there for "interviews". I wait four hours in a room with no heat. They eventually build a fire in the fire place, but you had to be standing in front of it to feel any of that. Finally, they tell me and the two other guys up for the role a Swedish janitor at the U.S. embassy in Stockholm to stand against a wall. The two other guys are blond and actually speak Swedish. (There might be a line in the film). Robert De Niro comes in. I don't notice because I'm laughing at the crazy old lady who hasn't shut up the whole day. By the time I notice De Niro is standing in front of me, they tell us to sit down.

Ten minutes later they came up and told the two blond guys who spoke Swedish to go home and that I was in.

Then they took me to go eat with a few guys playing CIA agents and then to wardrobe, where I took off my clothes in front of a couple ladies while they put me in various pants, shoes and shirts. Then, a very gay man cut my hair for a long time (considering how little hair I had to begin with). Then they told me to come back tommorow.

Here's the Internet Movie Database Page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343737/

Also in the movie....

Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Joe Pesci
.... and Sven Wechsler

Monday, December 05, 2005





Alright, back on the old Blogger. Had three sets tonight, two of them to nobody but comics. It snowed for the first time tonight, and everybody freaked out and stayed in, except for at the New York Comedy Club, where I believe they actually bring audiences in at gunpoint. Although, many of those in the crowd look like they are probably fairly used to having guns pointed at them. They didn't like my Jesus jokes. Interesting how comics can get up and say the most twisted pornographic visual things and have them roaring, but you get up and ponder how Jesus's fame would have waned without martyrdom and they just shut up. Well, maybe they just didn't get it. Maybe I need to smile more.