Here at Viable Paradise, one of the traditions is a Tuesday night reading of a Shakespeare play. This year it was The Tempest, and I had the part of Stephano, the drunken butler, while Marko Kloos played Trinculo and Patrick Nielsen Hayden was typecast as Caliban. Whatever regular Chang, who is a student here at VP this year, caught a snippet of our act. Bear in mind that I am, in fact, entirely sober here.
Entirely sober. No, really.
Well, I cried.
Brilliant! Bravo!
*claps wildly*
Michael Keaton has NOTHING on you, my friend.
It’s a good thing you write well. Where are your shoes?
HAHAHAHAH I love the title of the video, too!
This day needed more laffs, thank you.
Burns — all the best performers doff their shoes before the show. (I used to go shoeless back in my cover band days. In a scientific sample of 2 awesome performers, 2 out of 2 go the shoeless route.) ;)
Sober? Nah. Not under the influence, maybe, but you’re having WAY too much fun to be called sober!
now i finally know how you look when you’re drunk :)
Thou shall forever be known as – The Barefoot Bard.
Encore!
W00t! Beer with Billy! Glad everyone had fun.
S’truth!
Scalzi was in fact TERRIFYINGLY sober. And hilarious.
I was the one who was drunk enough that the words slipped o the page into my lap so I had to read others lines.
Excellent! Having seen John zoomed on Coke Zero before (Confusion 2008), this was type casting at it’s finest.
“I don’t drink. I don’t have to. I was born drunk.”
- Isaac Asimov
Who stole your shoes?
You people know that “Scalzi” means “barefoot” in Italian, yes?
They say that Foster Brooks rarely drank and wasn’t drunk during his perfomances. It looked like everyone was having a great time.
Maybe he barefoot thing is a clue, like Paul MaCartney on the Abbey Road album cover?
(sniff, sniff) ’tis not bacon I smell, but the aroma of Ham…;)
I’m gonna need to see the results of a tox screen before I believe you, dude.
You may have been sober at that reading, but you learned to act drunk somewhere. Perhaps a few wild dorm parties in college, when shoes were not the only things you lost?
In fact, I have never been drunk.
You were truly channeling Bill Irwin (if it’s possible to channel the spirits of living people), who I saw in this role in the Tempest in Central Park in 1995. He was hilarious! Too bad he played opposite the guy who played Cousin Ira on Mad About You as, I believe, Trinculo.
*gigglesnort*
Good thing I spent the last week hammering through Marko’s booze supply. He’s had recent training dealing with the locquatiously liquored – even if it is a caffeine-and-aspartame high ;)
Great to see you lot having such a blast.
Ha! Well, I’m glad to see that they got a recording of the reading up, which I failed so miserably at last year. It was sort of funny watching Doctorow switch between BoingBoing and Shakespeare mode.
19. JJS
In defense of John, you don’t have to have ever ‘been’ drunk to ‘act’ drunk. ‘Drinking’ can be a spectator sport, after all. I imagine John had plenty of opportunities to ‘see’ folks drunk during college, and hence, avoid the condition.
Plus, having had the opportunity to attend a Scalzi signing my-own-self, I can say he seems to be the sort of person who is high on life, and needs no artificial stimulants to have a good time. (okay, except maybe Coke Zero, but still…)
I watched a barmaid at staff drinks one night get quite tipsy on red cordial and milk. For some bizarre reason she thought the drink we were making her was alcoholic. It wasn’t. Didn’t stop her though. She got more and more tipsy. It was amusing for those of us in the know.
*dies laughing*
If that’s entirely sober, John, then you don’t want to be drunk. EVAR.
The first step is admitting you have a problem with Shakespeare. It’s okay, John. We’re your friends.
That wasn’t Coke Zero, that was Coke Sack.
Dr. Phil
“Patrick Nielsen Hayden was typecast as Caliban.”
Way back a long time ago, I read over a story I’d written and realized something: “Oh… the villain in this story… there’s an awful lot of PNH in him, isn’t there? Oh, dear.”
As it turned out, the story went to a number of markets without success. (But some of the best, and most frustrating, rejection letters I’ve ever gotten: “This is a really good story; I don’t want to publish it.”) As time had gone by, Patrick had been hired by Tor, and eventually started an anthology series, STARLIGHT.
So… I went ahead and sent him the story.
It came back with a form rejection, but Patrick had added the words, “Pretty good” up at the top.
To this day, I’m not sure if he was referring to the story as a whole, or if he just thought I’d nailed the characterization.
This was…just…just…
Exeunt, genuflecting to Le Scalzi and trailing maniacal laughter…
Well played, sir! I wonder if you should start a second career. (drunk people are the most. fun. roles. ever.)
I’m afraid I hafta disagree with Kristy. Possessed people are the most fun to play, with drunk running a close second, barely edging out megalomaniacs in third.
Oh, I’m sorry, John, did you think I was disagreeing with her about you?! Heaven forefend – you were a laugh riot.
Coke. Really.
That pic looks like Revenge Of The Upskirt Cam Victim.
I know that guy sitting to your right, that Marko guy, but haven’t seen him in months. Seeing him again, sitting next to one of my favorite Sci-Fi authors, reading Shakespeare makes me grin and giggle at the same time. Bravo, gents.
“You may have been sober at that reading, but you learned to act drunk somewhere.”
I would contend that habitually sober people are better at playing drunks than habitually drunk people, as they are in command of their faculties whilst learning through observation. Drunk people are too drunk to notice anything and have a tendency to forget stuff.