So when I wrote about "Last Comic Standing" a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I'd only seen the audition episodes and wasn't caught up on who the remaining contestants were. So when I finally tuned into a new episode a few days later, I was shocked to realize that I actually kinda know one of the finalists, Amy Schumer (some clips of her on the show here and here). Right now she's one of the final four comics left, and she's been the only woman on the show for a few weeks now, and she's pretty funny. I can't say I know her well, but, well, she was once actually my co-star.

Cabbage Head, an 18-minute short film directed by my friend Mike Bartolomeo, was the first acting performance of Al Shipley (and probably the last, especially since I never got a callback about being an extra in the last episode of "The Wire"). Mike was my roommate at the time and it was his senior film project at Towson University, and we spent the first few weeks of 2003 during Winter break shooting it with a few friends and film department people he knew. I helped fund production and did some small odd jobs, but I was never going to actually be in it until the actor Mike had cast pulled out a few weeks before shooting. It was kind of an everyman role, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me to play a college student who happened to have the same clothes, car, and apartment as me, whose name was Drew instead of Al. But it was still kind of a fun challenge, and I tried to play it fairly natural, with some comic touches. Most of the rest of the cast were actors from Towson's theater and film departments, including Amy, who kind of played my love interest in the movie. Mike and I were reminiscing about those times recently when we learned about Amy's newfound fame, and I suggested that he put the movie up on YouTube, and it turned out he already had, last year:

Cabbage Head (part 1)
Cabbage Head (part 2)

I don't really know how to describe the movie, other than that it's a sci-fi/horror/romantic comedy. I'm pretty proud of it, though. It won an award at a Towson student film screening, I think it tied 2nd place for the narrative category, and it's gotten a good response most of the times it's been played for an audience. I don't entirely know where Mike got the inspiration for it, although it definitely has nothing to do with the Kids In The Hall "cabbage head" character. Personally, I always thought of it as something of an Eraserhead homage (note my Jack Nance poster in the penultimate scene). Amy definitely had a good sense of humor, but I didn't even have any idea that she was a comic, although Mike says he knew that she'd been doing some stand-up last time he talked to her years ago. But it's pretty cool that she's doing so well on "Last Comic Standing" and I'm definitely going to be watching every Wednesday that she stays on the show and root for her.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 03, 2007 at 10:00 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.