Broken Lizard Interview

Broken Lizard is the infamous comedy troupe that brought us movies such as Beerfest, Super Troopers, and Slammin' Salmon. This interview took place late 2009 when they performed in Austin, TX.

BL31: So to start us off, where did it all begin?

Broken Lizard: We all went to school together, at Colgate University, and we all knew each other from different things. And Jay got kinda harrased about putting together some kind of stage show”. He kept blowing it off and then decided, “Aw, I’ll do a comedy show instead. And so he just called us up, there were a bunch of us, about 10 in the group then, and we just did live sketch comedy at Colgate. Then we graduated and it just whittled down to the five of us. So we moved to New York City, where we did sketches and movies, and the rest is history.

BL31: You obviously have had a lot of experience in almost all forms of performance. So I have to ask what do ya’ll prefer live performance or filming a movie?

Broken Lizard: I think their both fun, we started doing live comedy in NYC once we got out of school, and then started writing short films and then doing features. It’s great getting the immediate response from the live audience but seeing the film is lasting, the ability to show to your children and grandchildren. I don’t have any children, I pretend I have grandkids out there, I somehow skipped a generation.

BL31: Ha ha nice, so I have to ask how did the name broken Lizard come about?

Broken Lizard: We spent 3 days trying to come up with the name, so we came up with 4 Whities and an Injun, the Chocolate Speedo Bikini Team, and then I went to make the poster and I randomly changed it to Broken Lizard. And unfortunately there’s other story related to that.

BL31: Where do you draw inspiration?

Broken Lizard: Well the first thing you have to consider is an area where you can have 5 lead guys at the same time, so you’ll see we do movies about cops, or spacemen, mobsters, but that’s all you can do. But things will come out of hypotheticals. In Super Troopers, we have the bear fucking, and that came from. But we went on a lot of road trips together, when a lot our friends were getting married we hit the road and hit the marriage circuit and attending everyone’s wedding, and we would ask ourselves the hypotheticals, “what would you do if you saw a man having sex with a bear by the side of the road?” and that pretty much lead to the bear fucking scene. So things like that, abstract ideas. The new movie Slammin’ Salmon is not entirely my life, but my character’s story is based off my waiting tables experience, where I thought we had made it big, and I threw my apron down in a blaze of glory and told everyone to piss off and stormed out the door, only to return one year later to with my tail between my legs. And all the waiters there gave me the slow clap as I walked in the door.

BL31: What do each of you bring to the writing process?

Broken Lizard: We do bring a little something to the table. Paul is our oddly timely comedy guy. You know he’s influenced by laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello. Put a long ladder in Paul’s hands and he will turn 180 degrees and you will have to duck. Pie in the face. He loves it. We think Eric communicates best with the heart of America. He is our wholesome moral majority fellow, until you get him on live radio and then he swears like a sailor. Kevin, every group requires a fellow who has the appearance of a … how do you say, handsomeness, success is the way I like to put it. And Jay, well… he does nothing.

BL31: Can you describe the Broken Lizard comedy show experience…

Broken Lizard: Well we’re going around doing this live tour, and each show we do some original sketches we’ve written, each guy does like 10 minutes of standup, and then we also do sketches involving characters from our movies from the past that people know and love. Super Troopers, Beerfest, and we do a little audience participation, so there’s a little bit of everything. And then we show a clip from our new movie, The Slammin Salmon, to get people all excited about it.

BL31: So what future projects are in store for ya’ll ?

Broken Lizard: We’ve got the Slammin’ Salmon coming out December 11^th, and it’s going to open right here in Austin. And some of the guys here will be here that weekend, doing different events and stuff like that. So people should come out and check it out. Other than that we’re doing a lot of writing. We’ve got a script write now where we actually play college professors who are in a little bit of a fight with some of our students. Taking advantage of some students, in a good way. It’s called Rouge Scholars, so hopefully we’ll finish writing that and shoot it next year. We’ve also got a line of perfume coming out, it’s called broken lizard, we call it coco 5, it’s delicious. And that’s about it.

Blood Groove: By Alex Bledsoe

BLOOD GROOVE

SUMMARY

When centuries-old vampire Baron Rudolfo Zginski was staked in Wales in 1915, the last thing he expected was to reawaken in Memphis, Tennessee, sixty years later. Reborn into a new world of simmering racial tensions, the cunningnosferatu realizes he must adapt quickly if he is to survive. Finding willing victims is easy, as Zginski possesses all the powers of the undead, including the ability to sexually enslave anyone he chooses. Hoping to learn how his kind copes with this bizarre new era, Zginski tracks down a nest of teenage vampires. But these young vampires have little knowledge of their true nature, having learned most of what they know from movies like Blacula.

Forming an uneasy alliance with the young vampires, Zginski begins to teach them the truth about their powers. They must learn quickly, for there’s a new drug on the street—a drug created to specifically target and destroy vampires. As Zginski and his allies track the drug to its source, they may unwittingly be stepping into a fifty-year-old trap that can destroy them all . . .

REVIEW

Blood Grove is just plainly a bad book. I like Tor a lot and I have a lot of friends there, but I have no idea what inspired them to publish this piece of trash.

Blood Grove tries to combine somewhat of a narrative fiction look at the 70’s and vampires. All it turns into is a giant escapade of sex, unoriginal ideas, and the tarnishing of a genre. While that seems harsh, the book had poorly crafted supporting characters, an unoriginal idea, and a plot that moved at a snails pace.

Of course while I am trashing the book, I feel obligated to point out I did enjoy the character Barron Zginski. I found him unoriginal yet interesting, and if the entire book had been in his point of view I may have been able to look past the poorly constructed plot and unoriginal ideas. But alas it was not.

All in all this was a terrible book that I hope you never have the misfortune to read.

INFO

Publisher: Tor

Published: April 28, 2009

Price: $13.95

Dead To Me: By Anton Strout

Dead To Me

SUMMARY

Psychometry-the power to touch an object and divine information about its history-has meant a life of petty crime for Simon Canderous, but now he's gone over to the good side. At New York's underfunded and (mostly) secret Department of Extraordinary Affairs, he's learning about red tape, office politics, and the basics of paranormal investigation. But it's not the paperwork that has him breathless.

After Simon spills his coffee on (okay, through) the ghost of a beautiful woman- who doesn't know she's dead-he and his mentor plan to find her killers. But Simon's not prepared for the nefarious plot that unfolds before him, involving politically correct cultists, a large wooden fish, a homicidal bookcase, and the forces of Darkness, which kind of have a crush on him.

REVIEW

Dead to Me is a book that I probably would have never picked up if someone hadn’t recommended it to me. It’s the kind of book that when you browse through the book store you glance at, maybe read the back, but ultimately put back. But now that I’ve read Dead to Me, let me say putting this book back would be a huge mistake.

What makes Dead to Me so interesting and different is that instead of using a protagonist who’s been there, done that, and come back a badass, as many urban fantasy books do, it uses someone who’s idealistic, confused, and can barely follow what’s going on in the grand scheme of things. On top of everything else the protagonist, Simon, works in a government agency that like many business is very, very paperwork oriented. This naïve outlook on life and the grumblings of work create and connectable protagonist that has just enough humor to keep it all lively and interesting. Of course Simon isn’t the only good thing about Dead to Me, it also has a quick moving plot, an interesting story, and a good cast of supporting characters.

Of course not everything is great with this book. The villain was laughable, some of the descriptions and recaps were a tad to repetitive and unnecessary, and the character Jane was so horribly written, it makes the reader wish Strout would just kill her off just so we would stop listening to her.

But that said Dead to Me was a fast and interesting read that I’m glad I picked up, and I can’t wait to read the sequel Deader Still.

INFO

Publisher: ACE

Published: February 26, 2008

Price: $7.99

Humorous Snow Patrol Interview

Snow Patrol is a sensational band that has top charts world wide. Of course because of this they’ve been asked every question an interviewer could ask a hundred times over. So, because of this and because they’re a great group of guys, the following interview was conducted with just a tad bit of sarcasm and humor in the hopes of making it a little bit more interesting to ya’ll.

BL31: Can you tell us how Snow Patrol got started?

Snow Patrol: The five of us were fighting over the same guy and after a lot of bloodshed and (a few tears from me) we got to drinking and hey pretso here we are.

BL31: Who would you consider your influences to be?

Snow Patrol: Nirvana, Teenage Fanclub, Super Furry Animals, Stevie Wonder, AC/DC, T'pau, Cyndi Lauper, Boys to Men, Celine Dion, and High School Musical.

BL31: Now that you've reached rock star status, does the band make ridiculous demands just for the hell of it? For example, if you were to ask for 2,000 hand-packaged fruit baskets before a big show, would someone get them for you?

Snow Patrol: I think someone would get something for us but it may just be the door. All that is bullshit anyway. We have what everybody has: drinks and food. You don’t need anything more than that. That is, aside from maybe having interns go get baskets full of puppies and kittens, having the walls repainted, and having a mini circuses waiting for us in our rooms , nothing to big just some jugglers or a swami or two. But aside from that no, no big demands.

BL31: Often bands have songs that are misunderstood by the public, such as Sting’s “Every Breath You Take”. Do ya’ll have a song that is misunderstood and if so what?

Snow Patrol: We don’t have anything exactly the same thing since it was only one person's mix-up but here it is.

We were in Uganda in Africa for something else entirely, but whilst there the local radio station asked us to pop in for an interview. He had our Eyes Open album and played a few songs, one of which was 'Set Fire to the Third Bar'. Now I’m not lying but right after the song ended, and remember we were in Sub-Saharan Africa, the presenter said " And that was Snow Patrol with the song Set Fire to the Third World". We just about choked on our tongues.

BL31: Your song "Chasing Cars" was a huge hit in the US and the UK, but when it was featured on Grey's Anatomy, virtually every teenage girl became an instant fan. Did you expect this kind of reaction when you agreed the show could use the song?

Snow Patrol: We had no idea how big the show was as it wasn't big in the UK at the time. it was a big surprise to us for sure.

Getting the Girl: By Markus Zusak

Getting the Girl

SUMMARY

Cameron Wolfe, first introduced in Fighting Ruben Wolfe, wants a girlfriend. He wants sex. He wants to separate himself from his brothers' shadow. He wants to find himself and be something more than the underdog in the family. And he doesn't know how to go about getting what he wants. He is attracted to a girl who treats him horribly so he stands outside her house at night, hoping for glimpses of her. He likes his brother Ruben's girlfriend-and she treats him like a human being. When she and Ruben break up, Octavia shows an interest in Cameron and even though his brother already has another girlfriend, he beats up Cameron and Octavia walks away. Ruben has some bigger problems, though, and violence is once again his method of solving them. However, this is Cameron's story, and he discovers that he is much more than he ever thought he could be.

REVIEW

Many of you have probably heard of Markus Zusak, and if you haven’t you should have. His most famous books I Am the Messanger and The Book Thief have won countless awards including being named a Printz honor book and Publishers Weekly best book of the year. But of course this review isn’t about either one of those books (which are both sensational books as well), this review is about another remarkable book that is quite a bit less known, Getting the Girl.

Getting the Girl is the sequel to Fighting Ruben Wolff, but it can easily be read as a stand alone. It begins with the protagonist Cameron feeling like he wants more out of life than being the underdog and second string, but not really knowing how to achieve it. He’s in love with a girl who hates his guts, and he doesn’t really connect with anyone outside his family. All in all he’s not doing so well.

But then he starts to write and with the help of his sister and his brother’s ex-girlfriend Cameron starts to turn things around for himself, and discover there’s a lot more to Cameron Wolff than meets the eye.

Getting the Girl is a sensational coming of age story. It takes the lovable yet quiet brother and shows what’s really going on in his head. Teenage readers will truly connect with Cameron’s writing, and while some of it may seem unbelievable at parts, the love and attachment the reader will feel to the characters and the level of writing Zusak exhibits in this book make it a must read to any fan of young adult literature.

INFO

Publisher: Push

Published: June 1, 2004

Price: $8.99

Old Man's War: By John Scalzi

OLD MAN'S WAR

SUMMARY

With his wife dead and buried, and life nearly over at 75, John Perry takes the only logical course of action left him: he joins the army. Now better known as the Colonial Defense Force (CDF), Perry's service-of-choice has extended its reach into interstellar space to pave the way for human colonization of other planets while fending off marauding aliens. The CDF has a trick up its sleeve that makes enlistment especially enticing for seniors: the promise of restoring youth. After bonding with a group of fellow recruits who dub their clique the Old Farts, Perry finds himself in a new body crafted from his original DNA and upgraded for battle, including fast-clotting "smartblood" and a brain-implanted personal computer. All too quickly the Old Farts are separated, and Perry fights for his life on various alien-infested battlegrounds.

REVIEW

I’ve never been a big military science fiction fan. That said John Scalzi thoroughly impressed me with Old Man’s War. It was the work of a great genius and because of this book I’m now trying to read all of Scalzi’s work.

Old Man’s War takes place in a future where there is an intergalactic force that recruits not from the poor, and not from the young, but from the wealthy nation of the United States’ elderly. These old Americans are then transported to space where their consciousness is transferred into a new and improved body. This body is the one they will go to war with, and if they survive, then they’ll be allowed to retire in another youthful body.

The story quickly turns to the war and we soon discover there are many different species out there and few of them are friendly. As such the band of characters we’re introduced to soon becomes much smaller, moving the story along at a startling pace.

Scalzi has taken a used old idea, the military in space, and turned it into a piece of art. The descriptions are sensational and the story gripping, but what readers will be most fascinated with is Scalzi’s superb writing style. Readers really feel like they are being drawn into battle, becoming mesmerized with each minute detail of the intergalactic war.

As you may have guessed I’m a big fan of this book and all of Scalzi’s work at this point, and as such would eagerly recommend it to anyone who wants an engaging and thrilling book to read.

INFO

Publisher: Tor

Published: December 27, 2005

The Gods of Amyrantha: By Jennifer Fallon

The Gods of Amyrantha

SUMMARY

How do you go about killing yourself when you are an immortal? Is it even possible? Jennifer Fallon explores this tantalizing puzzle in The Gods of Amyrantha, the second in her Tide Lords series.

The Tide is turning and the Tide Lords’ powers are returning with it. Cayal, the Immortal Prince, hero of legend, was thought to be only a fictional character.

Cayal sure wishes that he was a piece of fiction—anything that would help him shuffle off this mortal coil. But even though he longs for a final death, things in the world keep pulling him back. Such as Arkady Desean, an expert on the legends of the Tide Lords who has discovered the truth about Cayal…and captured his heart.

Yes, the Tide Lords will walk upon the earth once more and, with the power that surges through the cosmos, stand poised to wreak havoc on all that humans hold dear. Cayal will have to decide if he wants to go on living just a little longer and if he is willing to risk his fellow immortals’ wrath in order to save the world.

REVIEW

While readers will initially feel like this is a typical epic fantasy, they would be very far from the truth. The Gods of Amyrantha is a great book that takes into account one of the questions that’s rarely asked, what happens if an immortal wants to die?

But this story is so much more than a simple gods vs humans tale. Its characters are rich and intricate. Its plot full of twists and surprising alliances and the pace of the story moves at an astoundingly rapid beat.

The only downside to The Gods of Amyrantha is that it’s the second in a quartet, and the others are still not all out yet. Other than that I would recommend this book to any fantasy reader wholeheartedly.

INFO

Publisher: Tor

Published: July 21, 2009

Price: $27.99