Black Swan Songs

I’ve been admiring Kristen Wiig in bit parts (ADVENTURELAND, KNOCKED UP)  for a while now, but I hadn’t watched enough Saturday Night Live (SNL) to discover that she is a comic genius…until I watched her host the SNL primetime Christmas special as Gilly.

With Gilly – the little trouble-causing, Orphan Annie-resembling minx – Wiig’s face becomes elastic, her voice and spacious timing dastardly neurotic while her eyes bug right out of her head. You can tell that Wiig has fine-tuned her comic skills with more than 10,000 hours of rehearsal. Improvization requires a poker face…and she’s got that nailed too as she never even comes close to breaking character (Jimmy Falon anyone?). With years of training as a member of The Groundlings, her focus and comic timing leave some of the other SNL cast members appearing amateurish and boring.

Digging up the best holiday related clips from season 1 to the present, the entire special was hilarious, but it was the Gilly character that forever sold me on Wiig’s mighty thespian powers.

The Gilly character and her childish desire to create anarchy while remaining mostly silent holds a mirror up to society. She becomes both light and dark, good and evil…and Wiig abandons her mastery of sarcasm with Gilly. Sadistic and adorable, Gilly is Wiig at her most brilliant…rolling the entirety of the dark chaos of the human condition into a character that barely speaks. It’s both creative and creepy…and I totally understand why they had Wiig host the Christmas clips show as Gilly.

I absolutely get it…and it’s genius. Look for Wiig to become SNL’s next break-out superstar.

Editors note: More than a year and a half later we’re watching Wiig open the comedy hit as the lead in BRIDESMAIDS, proving she is indeed bankable at the box office; we already knew she had the charisma and chops to be a leading lady.

Wanda Sykes: a bombshell on the DL.

This weekend, Wanda Sykes brings her super-blue, lesbian-friendly stand-up comedy to the Austin Music Hall. Sadly tickets must be moving slow as promoters have instituted a “buy 3 tickets get 1 free” campaign. Hopefully that enticement will get groups of friends up off the couch to see one of America’s funniest comediennes working.

Hollywood loves to cast Sykes as “the funny friend” in star vehicles with Anglo leads, but she’s at her best when she playing the part of someone 180 degrees opposite from her own persona…like her turn as Biggie Shorty in the 2001 cult favorite POOTIE TANG. That role also revealed that Sykes is a stone cold fox! Well aware of the subtext interlaced in Hollywood’s gender politics, Sykes often downplays her beauty. She also dresses without showing off a ton of skin or clevage, making sure she doesn’t upstage her co-stars in their various leading roles.

Sykes killed it at the recent presidential correspondent’s dinner, so look for her to be in top form.

Wanda Sykes: a bombshell on the DL.

This weekend, Wanda Sykes brings her super blue, lesbian-friendly stand-up comedy to the Austin Music Hall. Sadly tickets must be moving slow as promoters have instituted a “buy 3 tickets get 1 free” campaign. Hopefully that enticement will get groups of friends up off the couch to go out and see one of America’s funniest comediennes working.

Hollywood loves to cast Sykes as “the funny friend” in star vehicles with Anglo leads, but she’s at her best when she is doing something 180 degrees different from her own persona…like her turn as Biggie Shorty in the 2001 cult favorite POOTIE TANG. That role also revealed that Sykes is a stone cold fox! Well aware of the subtext interlaced in Hollywood’s gender politics, Sykes often downplays her beauty. She also dresses without flashing a ton of skin or cleveage, making sure she doesn’t upstage her co-stars in their various leading roles.

Sykes killed it at the recent presidential correspondent’s dinner, so look for her to be in top form.

My dentist is cool, but he’s got a horrible name for a doctor to have. Dr. Slaughter. He is a few years younger than me. He loves ska. In fact, he said he went to Flamingo Cantina last weekend to see one of his favorite bands, The Slackers. In Austin he’s known as “the rock ‘n’ roll dentist.”

(Note to self: today my dentist let me know that the black dude with dreads who says “This place is dead anyway” in Swingers is in The Slackers, or one of their affiliated bands. I can’t remember exactly because we had the conversation while I was on the gas.)

I visited Dr. Slaughter at 2:30 p.m. earlier today to get a cavity filled. When the dental assistant made the mistake of asking me if I need more gas, I responded, “I feel it, but you can turn it up a little bit…a little bit more…a little bit more…

“…oh, it’s maxed out. OK…I guess that will do.”

And when I left the dentist’s office, I felt like this kid.